Popular and official discourses concerning social grants in South Africa are often marked by a fundamental ambivalence. On one hand, there is widespread acknowledgement that state cash transfers for the poor help to reduce their poverty and vulnerability. On the other hand discussions surrounding social grants often include concerns about their potentially negative effects including: creating work disincentives, displacing private savings, elevating (teenage) fertility rates and leading to inappropriate consumption by the poor. The poles of these two positions are evident in much debate of the last decade, including discussion concerning the desirability of attaching conditions (‘conditionalities’) to social grant recipient.

This presentation presents a brief overview of the scholarly literature and discusses empirical research undertaken by PLAAS, in order to consider the developmental impact of social grant receipt in the South African context. The seminar asks: Do social grants have a developmental impact, and if so, how is this impact achieved?