Social security and the dignity of lone mothers in South Africa
Date
2014Author
Wright, Gemma
Noble, Michael
Ntshongwana, Phakama
Neves, David
Barnes, Helen
Metadata
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This working paper forms part of a project entitled ‘Lone Mothers in South Africa:
The role of social security in respecting and protecting dignity’. The project originates from
research undertaken for the South African Department of Social Development (DSD) about
attitudes to employment and social security (e.g. Noble et al., 2008; Ntshongwana, 2010a
and 2010b; Surender et al., 2007; Surender et al., 2010). During the fieldwork for that
programme of research, participants in focus groups repeatedly made the unprompted
point that poverty eroded their sense of dignity. Given that the South African Constitution
declares that people have inherent dignity and that dignity should be protected and
respected (Republic of South Africa, 1996), we decided to dedicate a separate project to
exploring the role that social security currently plays in relation to people’s sense of dignity.
Specifically we hoped to explore whether social assistance, as a financial transfer to low
income people, serves to help to protect and respect people’s dignity, or conversely
whether there are ways in which the country’s social security arrangements serve to
undermine people’s dignity.
Currently, there is no social assistance for low income people of working age, unless
they are entitled to claim the Disability Grant. There is however a commitment elsewhere in
the Constitution to the progressive realisation of access to social assistance for people, and
their dependants, who are unable to support themselves (Republic of South Africa, 1996:
Chapter 2 section 27). We therefore wanted to additionally explore whether people thought
that – in the context of very high levels of unemployment ‐ some additional form of social
assistance might be a worthwhile poverty alleviation measure that would help to protect
and respect people’s sense of dignity, or whether it might serve to further erode people’s
sense of dignity.