Browsing by Author "Beukes, Rochelle"

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    A comparative analysis of multidimensional poverty in South Africa focusing on the Western Cape and Eastern Cape between 1996 and 2016
    (University of the Western Cape, 2022) Draai, Eden-Lee; Beukes, Rochelle
    Remarkable progress has been made in South Africa since the transition from Apartheid to a democracy. Despite this, socio-economic challenges persist, and poverty remains a major problem in post-apartheid South Africa. Considerable efforts have been undertaken by the government to alleviate poverty among the people of South Africa by implementing various policies and programmes. Unfortunately, the nature of these programmes has not demonstrated a large impact on changing poverty holistically and on a sustained basis as the extent of poverty is still very different across provinces. When trying to understand the nature and extent of poverty, many local studies focus on the money-metric approach to measuring poverty. However, poverty is a multidimensional concept hence, this thesis will concentrate on measuring multidimensional non-money-metric poverty levels and trends. By applying the fuzzy sets approach, this thesis aims to determine how poverty levels and trends of non-money-metric poverty in South Africa have changed between 1996 and 2016. After which the Western Cape and Eastern Cape will be compared by investigating the differences in multidimensional poverty levels and trends between the two provinces. The data utilized are the 10% sample Censuses of 1996, 2001 and 2011 as well as the Community Surveys of 2007 and 2016.
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    Exploring the eligibility criteria of the child support grant and its impact on poverty
    (Springer Verlag, 2017) Beukes, Rochelle; Jansen, Ada; Moses, Mariana; Yu, Derek
    One of the most important policy objectives in the post-apartheid South African economy is to reduce poverty. Although economic growth and job creation are the preferred sources of alleviating poverty and inequality, social grant spending has contributed significantly to reduce poverty (Van der Berg et al. in Poverty trends since the transition: what we know. Stellenbosch Economic Working Papers: 19/09. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University, 2009). Recently proposals were tabled by the Department of Social Development of South Africa (Fin24 in R3.3bn plan to extend child support grant to 21. www.fin24.com/Economy/R33bn-child-care-grant-extension-to-21-on-cards-20150316. Accessed August 7, 2015, 2015) to extend the age eligibility of the child support grant (CSG) to 21 years (at the time of writing children aged up to 18 years are eligible). This sparked an interest to investigate the impact on poverty of changes to the eligibility criteria of CSG, as well as its fiscal implications. Using person and household data from the 2010/2011 Income and Expenditure Survey, various simulations are performed to assess the impact on poverty rates and changes to social spending, given the following changes: (1) if all age-eligible children applied; (2) if all beneficiaries received the grant amount for the full 12-month duration; (3) if the age eligibility criterion is extended; and (4) if the monthly child grant income amount is revised upwards. We also examine how changes in the eligibility criteria affect the income distribution.