South Africa Child Support Grant

Summary

The South Africa Child Support Grant is one of the most thoroughly studied small-value cash transfer programs in the world. The regression discontinuity designs exploiting age cutoff changes allow credible causal identification despite the lack of a formal randomized design. The finding that early receipt — within the first year of life — produces significantly larger long-term effects than late receipt suggests a developmental window: cash transfers are not interchangeable across time. The young adult earnings effects (7.3% higher for early vs. late recipients) indicate that even a small unconditional grant can compound over two decades. The program costs approximately 0.8% of South Africa's GDP and reaches more than a quarter of the country's children.

Research question

"Does early receipt of a small unconditional child support grant improve nutrition, schooling, and health for young children?"

Methodology

Result

Positive

Child stunting: −3.5% for children enrolled in first year of life; school enrollment at age 7: +4.5 pp; young adult earnings at age 20–25: +7.3% for early recipients

Evidence strength

Moderate

Quasi-experimental design with replication support.

Replication status

Replicated