TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring patterns of receipt of cash grants, health care, and education among 7–10 year old children in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
AU - Gordon, Nia
AU - Godfrey, Erin
AU - Aber, J. Lawrence
AU - Richter, Linda
AU - The SIZE Research Group
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute for core support to the Global TIES for Children Center, which provides intramural support for research activities that directly contributed to this publication. This research was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development [Grant # 5R01HD055137].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2017/7
Y1 - 2017/7
N2 - The South African government offers three main services to improve the developmental potential and overall well-being of the country's children: cash grants, health care, and education. There is research to suggest that receiving supports to the household in multiple domains simultaneously might improve children's development over and above improvements to development that are typically experienced when receiving a single developmental support, however, no research to date has empirically examined the patterns by which these services may be received, the associated quality of these services, the multilevel characteristics of children and their households that might predict receiving particular patterns of services, or the relationship between service receipt and children's academic and cognitive development in a natural (non-experimental) environment in South Africa. This paper uses three-step latent class analysis to explore patterns of receipt of the three primary government-provided services, the child-, caregiver-, household-, and community-level factors that predict receipt of these patterns, and the associations between service receipt patterns and the academic and cognitive outcomes of low-income 7–10 year old children living in peri-urban and rural regions of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, while accounting for potential sources of selection bias. Results revealed three service receipt patterns: primarily education, primarily cash grants and education, and all three services, showed that household level factors were most predictive of service receipt such that the most economically disadvantaged households were likely to receive the most services, and found that children receiving more services had poorer math outcomes as compared to children receiving fewer services.
AB - The South African government offers three main services to improve the developmental potential and overall well-being of the country's children: cash grants, health care, and education. There is research to suggest that receiving supports to the household in multiple domains simultaneously might improve children's development over and above improvements to development that are typically experienced when receiving a single developmental support, however, no research to date has empirically examined the patterns by which these services may be received, the associated quality of these services, the multilevel characteristics of children and their households that might predict receiving particular patterns of services, or the relationship between service receipt and children's academic and cognitive development in a natural (non-experimental) environment in South Africa. This paper uses three-step latent class analysis to explore patterns of receipt of the three primary government-provided services, the child-, caregiver-, household-, and community-level factors that predict receipt of these patterns, and the associations between service receipt patterns and the academic and cognitive outcomes of low-income 7–10 year old children living in peri-urban and rural regions of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, while accounting for potential sources of selection bias. Results revealed three service receipt patterns: primarily education, primarily cash grants and education, and all three services, showed that household level factors were most predictive of service receipt such that the most economically disadvantaged households were likely to receive the most services, and found that children receiving more services had poorer math outcomes as compared to children receiving fewer services.
KW - Child development
KW - Executive function
KW - Government services
KW - Math
KW - Reading
KW - Service patterns
KW - South Africa
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U2 - 10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.05.004
DO - 10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.05.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85019705478
SN - 0190-7409
VL - 78
SP - 177
EP - 188
JO - Children and Youth Services Review
JF - Children and Youth Services Review
ER -