The effect of cash transfers on mental health – new evidence from South Africa

BMC Public Health

Eleonora Fichera¹  Julius Ohrnberger²  Matt Sutton³  Laura Anselmi³ 

[1] Department of Economics, University of Bath;Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, School of Public Health;Division of Population Health, Health Services Research & Primary Care, University of Manchester;

关键词: Mental health;    Poverty;    Cash transfer;    Instrumental variable estimation;    Fixed effects;    South Africa;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-020-08596-7

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Abstract Background Mental health and poverty are strongly interlinked. There is a gap in the literature on the effects of poverty alleviation programmes on mental health. We aim to fill this gap by studying the effect of an exogenous income shock generated by the Child Support Grant, South Africa’s largest Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) programme, on mental health. Methods We use biennial data on 10,925 individuals from the National Income Dynamics Study between 2008 and 2014. We exploit the programme’s eligibility criteria to estimate instrumental variable Fixed Effects models. Results We find that receiving the Child Support Grant improves adult mental health by 0.822 points (on a 0–30 scale), 4.1% of the sample mean. Conclusion Our findings show that UCT programmes have strong mental health benefits for the poor adult population.

【 授权许可】

Unknown