Public Policy and Extended Families : Evidence from Pensions in South Africa

By Marianne Bertrand, Sendhil Mullainathan, Douglas L. Miller. 2003

401 citations recorded by the source corpus.

How are resources allocated within extended families in developing economies? This question is investigated using a unique social experiment: the South African pension program. Under that program the elderly receive a cash transfer equal to roughly twice the per capita income of Africans in South Africa. The study examines how this transfer affects the labor supply of prime-age individuals living with these elderly in extended families. It finds a sharp drop in the working hours of prime-age individuals in these households when women turn 60 years old or men turn 65, the ages at which they become eligible for pensions. It also finds that the drop in labor supply is much larger when the pensioner is a woman, suggesting an imperfect pooling of resources. The allocation of resources among prime-age individuals depends strongly on their absolute age and gender as well as on their relative age. The oldest son in the household reduces his working hours more than any other prime-age household member.

Subfields: Accounting, Demography, Gender Studies

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8a1a03899707eaa302bfa2dee469caa10153c642

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Accounting

In Demography

In Gender Studies

Citations in the corpus

The Impact of Economic Resource Transfers to Women Versus Men (2012, background): “Two these focus on a major expansion of the old-age pension in South Africa(Duflo, 2003andBertrand et al., 2003) and a third one examined the old-age pension programme in Bolivia (YanezPagans, 2008).The first is a universal, non-contributory programme targeting all women aged 60 and over and all men”
Child labor and schooling responses to anticipated income in South Africa (2006, background): “…other studies that use the OAP to identify income effects have documented sharing of the pension income with co-resident adults (Lund 1993, Case 2001, Bertrand, Mullainathan, and Miller 2003), across households (Jensen 2004, Edmonds, Mammen, and Miller 2005), and with children (Duflo 2000, 2003).”
Labour migration and households: A reconsideration of the effects of the social pension on labour supply in South Africa (2006, methodology): “public policy on extended families in South Africa. In their study, Bertrand et al (2003)”
Rearranging the Family? (2005, background): “South African pension program (Duflo 2003, Bertrand, Mullainathan, and Miller 2003, for”
For Protection and Promotion: The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets (2008, background): “…165 (US$3) a month in Bangladesh, roughly 10 percent of the average per capita income in 2003, to R 370 (US$106) a month in South Africa, equal to half the country’s average household income and more than twice the median per capita income in 1993 (Bertrand, Sendhil, and Miller 2003; Duflo 2003).4”
Conditional Cash Transfers: Reducing Present and Future Poverty (2009, neutral): “После падения режима апартеида в 1994 г. был открыт доступ к участию в программе для черных семей. сейчас программа, вероятно, рассматривается большинством домохозяйствучастников программ в как «неотъемлемое право». ранние исследования сПОс позволяли предполагать, что она оказывает значительное…”
Understanding South Africa's economic puzzles* (2008, background): “For these reasons, it seems implausible that rising wage costs were themselves the original source of the decline in manufacturing employment.”
High Unemployment Yet Few Small Firms: The Role of Centralized Bargaining in South Africa (2012, background): “…pension program combined with the high wages earned by the employed leave many unemployed individuals with networks capable of supporting them (e.g. Bertrand, Mullainathan, and Miller 2003 for labor supply effects; Edmonds, Mammen, and Miller 2005 for network effects of pensions on living…”
Rural Livelihoods in South Africa: Complexity, Vulnerability and Differentiation (2013, neutral): “Some early research suggested that an old age pension is negatively correlated with labour market involvement by working-age adults within recipients’ households (Bertrand et al. 2003).”
How Can Safety Nets Contribute to Economic Growth? (2013, background): “For example, South Africa’s generous old age pension is associated with reduced work among prime age family members living with the recipients (Bertrand, Mullainathan, and Miller, 2003) offset by increased labor of household members who have migrated for job search (Ardington, Case, and Hosegood,…”