This indicator shows the number and share of children living in households that are income-poor. Because money is needed to access a range of goods and services, income poverty is often closely related to poor health and nutrition, reduced access to education and early childhood development (ECD) facilities, and physical living environments that compromise health and personal safety.
International law and the Constitution recognise the link between income and the realisation of basic human rights and acknowledge that children have the right to social assistance (social grants) when families cannot meet children’s basic needs. Income poverty measures are therefore important for determining how many people need social assistance, and for evaluating the state’s progress in realising the right to social assistance.
No poverty line is perfect. Using a single income measure tells us nothing about how resources are distributed between family members, or how money is spent. But this measure does give some indication of how many children are living in households with severely constrained resources.
The poverty threshold used is the Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) ‘upper bound’ poverty line that was set at R779 per person per month in 2011 prices. The poverty lines increase with inflation and in 2023 the real value of the upper bound line was R1,558.1 Per capita income is calculated by adding all reported earnings for household members older than 15 years, adding the value of social grants received by anyone in the household, and dividing the total household income by the number of household members.
Stats SA publishes two other poverty lines:
- A ‘lower bound’ poverty line is calculated by adding to the food poverty line the average expenditure on essential non-food items by households whose food expenditure is below but close to the food poverty line. The value of the lower bound poverty line in 2011 prices was R501 per person per month (R1,058 in 2023 prices). Those living below this line would not be able to pay for the minimum non-food expenses or would be sacrificing their basic nutrition to pay for non-food expenses.
- A ‘food’ poverty line is based on the cost of the minimum nutritional requirement of 2,100 kilocalories per person per day, without any allowance for other basic necessities. The value of the food poverty line in 2011 prices was R335 per person per month (R760 in 2023 values). Anyone living below this line will be malnourished and their health and survival may be at risk.
We use the upper bound poverty line as our main indicator for tracking child poverty, as this is linked to the minimum requirement for basic nutrition and other basic needs such as clothing and shelter. In other words, the upper bound line is the only poverty line that meets the minimum requirement for children’s basic needs.
South Africa has very high rates of child poverty and, although poverty rates have reduced substantially over the last two decades, a large number of children remain in poverty. In 2019, 56% of children (11.2 million) lived below the upper bound poverty line and 33% were below the food poverty line. Income poverty rates had fallen substantially since 2003, when 78% of children (14.1 million) were defined as ‘poor’ at the upper bound threshold and 53% were below the food poverty line. The reduction in the child poverty headcount over this period was mainly the result of a massive expansion in the reach of the Child Support Grant (CSG).
Child poverty rates increased in the lockdown year of 2020, with the upper-bound poverty rate rising by seven percentage points to 63%, and the child food poverty rate rising by six percentage points to 39%. Average poverty rates levelled off in 2021, although they did not decline. Poverty rates then increased again in most provinces in 2022. Across all the poverty measures, poverty rates were higher in 2022 than they were in the pre-lockdown year of 2019. In terms of population numbers, this translates as an additional 1.3 million children below the food poverty line, and an additional 3.4 million children below the upper-bound poverty line, compared with 2019. Given that the child population has grown over the past two decades, there were more children living in poverty in 2022 than there had been in 2003.
There are substantial differences in poverty rates across the provinces. Using the upper bound poverty line, nearly 80% of children in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga are poor. Gauteng and the Western Cape have the lowest child poverty rates, although there was a substantial increase in poverty in both these provinces – from 35% in 2019 to 59% in 2022 in Gauteng, and from 27% to 44% in the Western Cape. Child poverty remains most prominent in the rural areas of the former homelands, where 87% of children were below the poverty line in 2022. However, poverty rates have also risen sharply among urban children, with the upper-bound poverty rate in urban areas standing at 60% in 2022 (up from 41% in 2019), and the food poverty rate at 28% (up from 21%).
There are glaring racial disparities in income poverty: 75% of African children lived in households below the upper bound poverty line in 2022 (up from 61% in 2019). Although poverty rates among Coloured children are consistently lower than for African children, the increase in poverty was even more pronounced in the Coloured population over the period, with upper bound poverty rates rising from 33% in 2019 to 49% in 2022. The lockdown period had no significant impact on poverty rates among Indian and White children.
There are no significant differences in child poverty levels across gender or between different age groups in the child population.
Using Stats SA’s lower bound poverty line (which only provides for basic essentials if people make food sacrifices), 53% of children (11.1 million) were poor in 2022 (up from 44% in 2019), and 38% (7.9 million children) were below the food poverty line, meaning that they were not getting enough nutrition.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) replaced the Millennium Development Goals in 2015 and set a global agenda for development by 2030. Target 1.1 is to eradicate extreme poverty using the international poverty line of $1.90 per person per day (equivalent to R403 per person per month in 2022, using the International Monetary Fund purchasing power parity conversion).
2 This poverty line is extremely low – below survival level – and is not appropriate for South Africa. No child should be below it. In 2003, 52% of children (9.3 million) lived below the equivalent of the SDG poverty line. By 2019, this had decreased to 22% (4.3 million), but in 2020 the ultra-low ‘SDG poverty rate’ spiked to 28% before settling back to 21% (4.4 million children) in 2022.
Impact of disaster relief grants and grant top-ups on child poverty
The poverty rates presented above are based on reported income and the normal grant amounts – in other wordsthe estimates reflect poverty rates in the absence of disaster relief.
There was a sharp rise in unemployment in the lockdown of 2020. Three million jobs were lost between February and April 2020. Two million of those who lost employment were women.
3 This had a direct effect on child poverty, especially as children in South Africa are more likely to be co-resident with women than with men.
The South African government introduced disaster relief grants and top-ups to existing grants, starting in May 2020 and ending in October. Only the newly introduced R350 COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant for unemployed adults (SRD) continued into 2021 and beyond.
The General Household Survey, on which the analysis for this indicator is based, took place telephonically between September and December 2020. The survey therefore spans two months when grant top-ups were in place, and two months after they had been terminated. For this reason, the child poverty rates for 2020 have been estimated in two ways:
- First, the poverty rates are calculated in a scenario without the disaster relief grants and top-ups (i.e., including existing grants but excluding disaster relief) as presented above; and
- Second, the poverty rates are calculated in a scenario that includes the R250 top-ups to existing grants, the temporary caregiver grant (R500 per month per caregiver who receives a child support grant for one or more children) and the R350 COVID-19 SRD. The CSG received a top-up for only one month, in May 2020, and this has not been included in the poverty calculations as it was a once-off top-up that preceded the survey.
The disaster relief grants and top-ups had a small impact on child poverty at the upper bound poverty line, reducing the poverty rate from 63% (without disaster relief) to 60% (including disaster relief). The impact of disaster relief was more pronounced at the food poverty line: during the months where grant top-ups and the caregiver grant were active, the food poverty rate for children would have decreased from 39% (8 million children) to 34% (6.9 million children).
As shown in the graph below, the disaster relief grants and top-ups had a strong protective effect, counteracting rising poverty in the context of lockdown. This protective effect would have ended when the top-ups and caregiver grant were withdrawn.
1 Statistics South Africa (2023) National Poverty Lines 2023. Statistical Release no. P0310.1. Pretoria: Statistics South Africa.
2 International Monetary Fund (2022) World Economic Outlook database.
3 Spaull N et al. NIDS-CRAM survey, Wave 1. Overview and findings. https://cramsurvey.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Spaull-et-al.-NIDS-CRAM-Wave-1-Synthesis-Report-Overview-and-Findings-1.pdf