SOUTH AFRICA

The Kwazulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study

A High Concentration Country Study Program

Collaborators:

• The University of Natal-Durban
• The University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Data Research Africa

The objectives of the project are to:

1. describe and explain changes in household welfare between 1993 and 1998,

2. describe the incidence and nature of shocks experienced by households and to explain why some households have coped with shocks better than others,

3. to test different models of the household (unitary versus several types of collective models), and

4. to understand better the determinants of changes in household structure and formation.

The data for the project will be based on a re-survey of approximately 1400 households from 70 rural and urban communities in Kwazulu-Natal province, the largest of South Africa's 9 provinces.

The households were first surveyed in 1993, and the same households will be re-surveyed between March and May of 1998. Throughout the analysis and the questionnaire there will be a strong focus on social capital (the strength of male and female social capital, assets, and income, etc.). The research will inform a wide number of policy debates in South Africa on the impacts of changes in the Child Maintenance Grants, the design of Old Age Pensions, the level of government investment in education, the efficacy of gender-targeting of interventions, and ways in which the government can foster social capital and self-help development initiatives. In addition a qualitative study of social capital and shocks has been completed by Catherine Cross at the University of Natal and will be available in May 1998.

Main Research Team:

Michael Carter, University of Wisconsin
Julian May, University Natal
Duncan Thomas, RAND and U.C.L.A.
Lawrence Haddad
John Maluccio