An analysis of child poverty in households headed by Millennials in South Africa

Abstract

Several policies have been implemented in South Africa in an effort to eradicate child poverty and to improve the general welfare of children. These policies include the Child Support Grant (CSG), school nutrition programme and free basic education among others. Despite these, child poverty still persists. Previous studies have found that child poverty is very much associated with household poverty and that the characteristics of the head of the household has implications for child poverty status in their households. Therefore, analysing the characteristics of the modern-day parents, particularly the Millennials is crucial to determine their contribution to child poverty. Millennials joined the labour force during the global financial crisis in the late-2000s. This influenced their employment opportunities, income growth, and productive assets ownership. Consequently, Millennials experienced lower income growth, lesser employment opportunities, and fewer productive assets than the preceding generations. While previous studies observed the head of the household characteristics and the resultant child poverty, none have studied the characteristics of Millennials and their influence on child poverty. This study investigates the extent to which child poverty is prevalent in Millennial households by studying the characteristics of the heads of these households. The General Household Survey 2019 data were employed to identify the characteristics of Millennials. Descriptive statistical analyses in the form of cross-tabulations together with a binary logistic regression were used to analyse the relationship between those characteristics and the prevalence of child poverty in their households. The findings show that the socio-economic characteristics of the Millennial heads of households, such as employment status, their education level and household size greatly influence the extent of the prevalence of child poverty in their households. Therefore, creating job opportunities and providing in-job training programs may benefit Millennial heads of households in order to eradicate child poverty in their households.