Food Insecurity in South Africa: Evidence from NIDS-CRAM Wave 5

Berg, Servaas van der; Patel, Leila; Bridgman, Grace

doi:10.2139/ssrn.4009660

Cited by 20 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…The current research ndings suggest that poorer South African regions continue to have lower levels of public service provision, such as WASH infrastructure, but are well targeted by means-tested cash grants (32,35,36). South Africa's cash grant system has been found to be critical in reducing child poverty and food insecurity (37). However, orphaned children tend to live in the poorest areas of the country, making them more likely than other children to experience chronic illness which can lead to stunting (38-41).…”

Section: Child Welfare In Different Regionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional inequalities in single orphanhood, child nutrition and social protection in South Africa: a spatial econometric approach

Leach

Fintel

2023

Preprint

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Background: Orphanhood and parental absence are both associated with a range of childhood socioeconomic disadvantages. However, their separate effects on child health are not adequately understood. Absence limits parents’ psychosocial investment in children. In the case of orphans, reduced resource flows to children add an additional layer to the disadvantage. Social protection and extended family networks can compensate for material and psychosocial disadvantages. This paper studies the case of South Africa, where high rates of parental absence, orphanhood and child stunting co-exist. These disadvantages are geographically concentrated in the former homelands, impoverished areas affected by a range of apartheid-era discriminatory legislation. Homelands households typically form around the elderly who take care of children on behalf of absent migrant worker parents, or who adopt orphaned children. Methods: This paper firstly maps the geography of single orphanhood and child nutrition, establishing whether various disadvantages are concentrated in the same regions. Spatial econometric models accounting for regional spill-over are used to estimate associations between child nutrition, parental absence, orphanhood, state support and household resources. Results: There are strong overlapping regional inequalities in child nutrition and orphanhood. Disadvantages are concentrated in former homelands. Father absence and paternal orphanhood rates have similar positive associations with local stunting rates. Household resources and access to social services do not moderate this association. By contrast, maternal absence and maternal orphanhood are insignificantly correlated with stunting. However, maternal absence is negatively correlated with child underweight. Conclusions: Father presence is more strongly associated with child outcomes than material resources, suggesting that fathers also make non-material or psychosocial contributions to child health. Maternal absence and orphanhood rates have smaller associations with chronic health outcomes. In fact, our results support the hypothesis that absent working mothers who migrate to urban areas remit incomes to benefit the acute nutrition status of children. Addressing regional inequalities in orphanhood and child nutrition requires more than the local expansion of public social safety nets in areas of high vulnerability. Rather, the bigger challenge of addressing father presence will make a large contribution to improving children’s health outcomes.

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Section: Child Welfare In Different Regionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regional inequalities in single orphanhood, child nutrition and social protection in South Africa: a spatial econometric approach

Leach

Fintel

2023

Preprint

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“…During the recent Covid-19 pandemic, food insecurity in South Africa rose significantly, as a result of lockdown-related restrictions on mobility, reductions in income driven by contraction of the economy and employment, and suspension of the National School Nutrition Programme's meals at school (van der Berg et al 2022). For some, this rapid increase in hunger, and more broadly, food insecurity, was seen to be something new.…”

Section: Case Study #1: Brazilmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging the Normalisation of Hunger in Highly Unequal Societies

Devereux¹,

Haysom²,

Maluf³

et al. 2022

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This paper starts from an empirical observation that levels of hunger or food insecurity in middle-income and high-income countries are often higher than might be expected, and in some cases are rising rather than falling in recent years. We document levels and trends in selected food security indicators for three case study countries: Brazil, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. We argue that, given the availability of resources and state capacity to eradicate hunger in these countries, a process of ‘normalisation’ has occurred, meaning that governments and societies tolerate the persistence of hunger, even when a constitutional and/or legal right to food exists that should make hunger socially, politically, and legally unacceptable. We further argue that one driver of normalisation is the way food (in)security is measured; for instance, the assumption that structural hunger cannot exist in countries that are self-sufficient or surplus producers of food. We suggest that high levels of structural hunger are predictable outcomes in societies characterised by high levels of income and wealth inequality.

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“…The National Income Dynamics Survey, Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM), a monthly nationally representative panel survey conducted since May 2020, indicated immediate adverse effects on employment and food security and widening inequality. Between March and June 2020, 40% of the NIDS-CRAM sample reported the loss of employment as a result of COVID-19 and 22% of adults and 15% of children were reported to have gone to bed hungry [ 11 , 12 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nutritional Status, Dietary Intake and Dietary Diversity of Landfill Waste Pickers

et al. 2022

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The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe the nutritional status, dietary intake and dietary diversity of waste pickers in South Africa, a socioeconomically vulnerable group who makes a significant contribution to planetary health through salvaging recyclable material from dumpsites. Participants were weighed and measured to calculate body mass index (BMI). Dietary intake was recorded using a standardised multipass 24 h recall. Individual dietary diversity scores were derived from the dietary recall data. Data were collected from nine purposefully selected landfill sites located in six rural towns and three cities in four of the nine provinces in South Africa, providing nutritional status information on 386 participants and dietary intake on 358 participants after data cleaning and coding. The mean BMI of the study sample was 23.22 kg/m2. Underweight was more prevalent among males (22.52%) whilst 56.1% of the females were overweight or obese. The average individual dietary diversity score was 2.46, with 50% scoring 2 or less. Dietary intake patterns were characterised as monotonous, starch-based and lacking vegetables and fruits. The nutritional status, dietary intake and dietary diversity of waste pickers reflect their precarious economic status, highlighting the need for health, social and economic policies to improve access and affordability of nutritious food.

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Food Insecurity in South Africa: Evidence from NIDS-CRAM Wave 5

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

Regional inequalities in single orphanhood, child nutrition and social protection in South Africa: a spatial econometric approach

Regional inequalities in single orphanhood, child nutrition and social protection in South Africa: a spatial econometric approach

Challenging the Normalisation of Hunger in Highly Unequal Societies

Nutritional Status, Dietary Intake and Dietary Diversity of Landfill Waste Pickers

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