Subjective well-being impact of old age pension in South Africa: A difference in difference analysis across the gender divide

South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Subjective well-being impact of old age pension in South Africa: A difference in difference analysis across the gender divide
 
Creator Kollamparambil, Umakrishnan Etinzock, Mfongeh N.
 
Subject public policy; impact evaluation State transfers; old age pension; difference in difference; South Africa, impact evaluation.
Description Background: South Africa provides old age pension (OAP), a non-contributory means-tested income transfer to persons aged 60 and above. More than two-thirds of the elderly population report receiving the OAP. Women have historically had a lower pension eligibility age of 60, while the eligibility of men decreased from 65 to 60 between 2008 and 2010.Aim: This study analyses the impact of the OAP on the subjective well-being of the elderly in South Africa. The study aims at understanding the differential impact on the subjective well-being of male and female recipients.Methods: The study adopts the difference in difference (DiD) impact evaluation framework to establish the impact of OAP using a sub-sample of data for elderly persons aged between 55 and 64, collected from the first four waves of the National Income Dynamics study. Linear and non-linear DiD models are estimated as robustness checks given the ordinal nature of the dependent variable.Results: The OAP variable consistently produced positive and significant estimates for the sample as a whole. Further, anticipatory effect of OAP was not found to exist. A gender specific analysis indicates that female recipients have a positive and significant change in well-being as a result of OAP, while male recipients did not.Conclusion: The difference in the well-being impact of OAP between male and female recipients can be attributed to the gender difference in the use and meaning of pensions. Our findings question the uniform criteria introduced for male and female recipients for OAP in South Africa.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2019-12-06
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Quasi-experimental impact evaluation
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajems.v22i1.2996
 
Source South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences; Vol 22, No 1 (2019); 12 pages 2222-3436 1015-8812
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2996/1960 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2996/1959 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2996/1961 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/2996/1958
 
Coverage South Africa 2008-2014 —
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Umakrishnan Kollamparambil, Mfongeh N. Etinzock https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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