IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/deveco/v183y2026ics030438782600146x.html

The mental health impact for adolescents ageing out of South Africa’s child support grant

Author

Listed:
  • Khumalo, Tsepang
  • Burger, Ronelle
  • von Fintel, Marisa

Abstract

While the benefits of cash transfers are well documented, little attention has been given to the negative effects of their cessation, particularly on mental health. We examined this question using South African longitudinal survey data comprising 7899 unique adolescents tracked as they age out of the Child Support Grant, the country’s largest cash transfer. We find that loss of the Child Support Grant leads to a decline in mental health equivalent to 0.42 of a standard deviation in the CES-D score, robust across model specifications and falsification tests. Increased job search activity points to resource mobilisation as a plausible mechanism, consistent with the Conservation of Resources framework. Effects are concentrated among adolescents in urban areas and households with lower and less diversified income. The results point to a neglected aspect of social protection: how and when cash transfers are withdrawn, particularly when this coincides with critical life stages.

Suggested Citation

  • Khumalo, Tsepang & Burger, Ronelle & von Fintel, Marisa, 2026. "The mental health impact for adolescents ageing out of South Africa’s child support grant," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:183:y:2026:i:c:s030438782600146x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103863
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438782600146X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103863?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • N27 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Africa; Oceania

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:deveco:v:183:y:2026:i:c:s030438782600146x. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/devec .

    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.