Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/iaae15/211916.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Small-scale farming and hunger: the enabling role of social assistance programmes in South Africa’s former homelands

Author

Listed:
  • von Fintel, Dieter
  • Pienaar, Louw
Abstract
Cash transfers successfully alleviate poverty in many developing countries. South Africa is a case in point, implementing one of the largest unconditional cash transfer programmes internationally, and with substantial benefits to household well-being along multiple dimensions. Yet, grants discourage formal labour market attachment, creating dependencies on the fiscus. This study uses a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to establish that state-funded Old Age Pensions encourage non-market economic activity (in the form of small-scale farming), and improve the self-reported food security of rural households that farm, vis-à-vis those that do not. The role of small-scale farming is of broader interest in rural development, given the context of the 1913 and 1936 Land Acts that constrained this form of livelihood in former apartheid homelands. This paper’s contribution is two-fold: grants are an effective channel to actively promote rural development through small-scale farming, and they improve food security by non-market mechanisms.

Suggested Citation

  • von Fintel, Dieter & Pienaar, Louw, 2015. "Small-scale farming and hunger: the enabling role of social assistance programmes in South Africa’s former homelands," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211916, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:iaae15:211916
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.211916
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/211916/files/von%20Fintel-Small-scale%20farming%20and%20hunger-1026.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.211916?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Victoria Hosegood & Anne Case & Cally Ardington, 2009. "Labor Supply Responses to Large Social Transfers: Longitudinal Evidence from South Africa," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 22-48, January.
    2. Jorge M. Aguero & Michael R. Carter & Ingrid Woolard, 2006. "The Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers on Nutrition: The South African Child Support Grant," SALDRU Working Papers 8, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    3. Abel, Martin, 2013. "Unintended labour supply effects of cash transfer programmes: Evidence from South Africa's old age pension," SALDRU Working Papers 114, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    4. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan & Douglas Miller, 2003. "Public Policy and Extended Families: Evidence from Pensions in South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 17(1), pages 27-50, June.
    5. Cally Ardington & Till Bärnighausen & Anne Case & Alicia Menendez, 2016. "Social Protection and Labor Market Outcomes of Youth in South Africa," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 69(2), pages 455-470, March.
    6. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    7. repec:ldr:wpaper:96 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Otterbach, Steffen & Rogan, Michael, 2017. "Spatial Differences in Stunting and Household Agricultural Production in South Africa: (Re-)Examining the Links Using National Panel Survey Data," IZA Discussion Papers 11008, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Otterbach, Steffen & Rogan, Michael, 2017. "Spatial differences in stunting and household agricultural production in South African: (re-)examining the links using national panel survey data," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 13-2017, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. von Fintel, Dieter & Pienaar, Louw, 2016. "Small-Scale Farming and Food Security: The Enabling Role of Cash Transfers in South Africa's Former Homelands," IZA Discussion Papers 10377, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Sinyolo, Sikhulumile & Mudhara, Maxwell & Wale, Edilegnaw, 2016. "To what extent does dependence on social grants affect smallholder farmers’ incentives to farm? Evidence from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 11(2), pages 1-12.
    3. Marisa Coetzee, 2013. "Finding the Benefits: Estimating the Impact of The South African Child Support Grant," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(3), pages 427-450, September.
    4. Unnikrishnan, Vidhya & Imai, Katsushi S., 2020. "Does the old-age pension scheme improve household welfare? Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    5. Luca Tiberti & Hélène Maisonnave & Margaret Chitiga & Ramos Mabugu & Véronique Robichaud & Stewart Ngandu, 2013. "The Economy-wide Impacts of the South African Child Support Grant: a Micro-Simulation-Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," Cahiers de recherche 1303, CIRPEE.
    6. Kacker, Kanishka, 2019. "Social transfers and labor supply: Long run rvidence from South Africa," MPRA Paper 99044, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Marito Garcia & Charity M. T. Moore, 2012. "The Cash Dividend : The Rise of Cash Transfer Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2246.
    8. Alessandro Tondini & Cally Ardington & Ingrid Woolard, 2017. "Public pensions and elderly informal employment: Evidence from a change in retirement age in South Africa," SALDRU Working Papers 206, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    9. Jessica Standish-White & Arden Finn, 2015. "Unconditional cash transfers and children's educational outcomes: Evidence from the old-age pension programme in South Africa ," SALDRU Working Papers 147, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    10. Mochiah, Eric Ekobor-Ackah & Osei, Robert Darko & Osei Akoto, Isaac, 2014. "The impact of conditional cash transfer programmes on household work decisions in Ghana," WIDER Working Paper Series 116, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Ariel Fiszbein & Norbert Schady & Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Margaret Grosh & Niall Keleher & Pedro Olinto & Emmanuel Skoufias, 2009. "Conditional Cash Transfers : Reducing Present and Future Poverty," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2597.
    12. Bassier, Ihsaan & Budlender, Joshua & Zizzamia, Rocco & Leibbrandt, Murray & Ranchhod, Vimal, 2021. "Locked down and locked out: Repurposing social assistance as emergency relief to informal workers," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    13. Mena, Gary & Hernani-Limarino, Werner L., 2015. "Intended and Unintended Effects of Unconditional Cash Transfers: The Case of Bolivia's Renta Dignidad," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 7350, Inter-American Development Bank.
    14. Manea, Roxana Elena & Piraino, Patrizio & Viarengo, Martina, 2023. "Crime, inequality and subsidized housing: Evidence from South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    15. Irineu Evangelista de Carvalho Filho, 2012. "Household Income as a Determinant of Child Labor and School Enrollment in Brazil: Evidence from a Social Security Reform," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 399-435.
    16. Amar Hamoudi & Duncan Thomas, 2014. "Endogenous Co-residence and Program Incidence: South Africa's Old Age Pension," NBER Working Papers 19929, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Nicola Brandt, 2012. "Reducing Poverty in Chile: Cash Transfers and Better Jobs," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 951, OECD Publishing.
    18. Jing You & Miguel Niño‐Zarazúa, 2019. "The Intergenerational Impact of China's New Rural Pension Scheme," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 45(S1), pages 47-95, December.
    19. Laura Juarez & Tobias Pfutze, 2015. "The Effects of a Noncontributory Pension Program on Labor Force Participation: The Case of 70 y Más in Mexico," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(4), pages 685-713.
    20. Kaushal, Neeraj, 2014. "How Public Pension affects Elderly Labor Supply and Well-being: Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 214-225.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:iaae15:211916. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.