Crushing the myths about child support grants

Children from impoverished backgrounds benefit a great deal from grants which help improve early childhood development.

South Africa's child support grant continues to offer a more affordable life to impoverished mothers in need of government intervention.

However, as the country's economy struggles to see positive growth numbers, criticisms against the R350 grant have grown over the years.

702/Cape Talk's Eusebius McKaiser spoke to Janet Jobson from the DG Murray Trust in an effort to decipher fact from fiction.

All of the research shows that the child support grant is the most effective social intervention we have ever put in place as a country.

Janet Jobson, DG Murray Trust

Some of the popular myths are the following:

1. Social grants are a waste of taxpayers' money
2. Poor people keep having more children, the country's tax base can't continue to support them
3. Parents claim child support for children who aren't under their care
4. Parents spend the child support grant money on alcohol
5. The child support grant incentivises teenage girls to fall pregnant
6. People have children just to access the child support grant money
7. The problem cannot be resolved in our lifetime, it's too big a problem
8. Subsidised day care is luxury for more developed countries, South Africa can't afford it

Jobson said the notion of poorer people who are dependent on the state lacking the will to do something to change their circumstances is another myth that is often touted.

I think we have imported a rhetoric from other countries which are welfare states.

Janet Jobson, DG Murray Trust

Listen to the conversation below: