Accessing the ‘Right’ Kinds of Material and Symbolic Capital: the Role of Cash Transfers in Reducing Adolescent School Absence and Risky Behaviour in South Africa

Abstract

This article investigates how well South Africa’s Child Support Grant (CSG) responds to the material and psychosocial needs of adolescents, and the resultant effects on schooling and risky behaviour. One driver of schooling decisions is shame related to poverty and the ‘social cost’ of school, where a premium must often be paid for fashionable clothes or accessories. The other driver relates to symbolic and consumptive capital gained through engaging in sexual exchange relationships. The anticipated impacts from the CSG are partial because of these non-material drivers of adolescent choices. Non-material transmission mechanisms must be better understood and addressed.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the following institutions and individuals for their support: Department of Social Development (DSD), the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) South Africa for research funding; Fiona Baloyi, Jerry Baloyi, Basithile Dlamini, Wendy Mabasa, Clifford Mabhena, Naledi Mazibuko,Wandile Nyandeni, Sydney Radebe, and Phumlani Zulu for fieldwork; Jesse McConnell, Michael Samson and Ingrid van Niekerk for study management support; Ashling McCarthy, Amy Hixon and Soomaya Khan for fieldwork support; Elisabeth Becker for assistance with data analysis; Eric Musekene, Rudzani Takalani and Alice Odhiambo from SASSA, Thilde Stevens, Thabani Buthelezi, Maureen Motepe, Tsholofelo Adelekan and Dibolelo Ababio from Department of Social Development; Lucia Knight and Linda Richter from HSRC; George Laryea-Adjei and Nkechi Obisie-Nmehielle from UNICEF; and Patrick Chiroro from Impact Research International. Gratitude is also expressed to the adult and child respondents for their time and contributions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Michelle Adato is currently writing in her personal capacity. At the time the research for this article was conducted, she was with the International Food Policy Research Institute.

2. The authors of this article were the principal authors of the qualitative component of the evaluation. For the qualitative evaluation report, see DSD, SASSA, and UNICEF (2011).

3. A related theory of change is that staying in school itself will lower likelihood of engaging in risky sexual practices (for which there is substantial evidence of association; see Hargreaves et al., 2008; Pettifor et al., 2005), leading to a hypothesis that using cash transfers to keep girls in school will reduce risk. In Malawi, conditional and unconditional cash transfers to girls were associated with lower self-reported sexual activity and younger partners (Baird, Garfein, McIntosh, & Özler, 2012).

4. For this reason, the article focuses on sexual exchange relationships, although there are many forms of risky behaviour. It was not possible in this article to analyse the full range of risky behaviours that we studied in the evaluation, especially those for adolescent boys, such as drug and alcohol abuse, gangs and criminal activity.

5. One such study is Adato et al. (2007), which includes ethnographic accounts of psychosocial and sociocultural factors that cause girls to leave school in south-eastern Turkey, despite the existence of a CCT that incentivises their enrolment. Here shame is experienced by children and their families in relation to their communities where girls are perceived to be interacting with boys or men in or on the way to school.

6. The South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) is mandated by the Department of Social Development to deliver South Africa’s social grants.

7. The 2011 quantitative evaluation did not ask about what the CSG was spent on, because the fungibility of cash makes it difficult to assign expenditures to different streams of income. Nevertheless, qualitatively it is helpful to understand what additional spending beneficiaries perceive to be enabled by CSG cash.