Issue

Vol. 20 No. 2 (2016): African Sociological Review

7 - A qualitative application of Amartya Sen’s ‘development as freedom’ theory to an understanding of social grants in South Africa.

https://doi.org/10.57054/asr.v20i2.3820
Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7786-745X

Corresponding Author(s) : Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba

mbxaba@yahoo.com

African Sociological Review, Vol. 20 No. 2 (2016): African Sociological Review

Abstract

Amartya Sen argued that poverty is the “deprivation” of a person’s capability to lead a “good
life”, therefore ending poverty means meeting basic physical and social needs, and enabling
meaningful economic and political choices. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether and
how social grants enable “choices” in Sen’s sense. In-depth interviews conducted with social
grants recipients’ in this study provided evidence that social grants reduce poverty, both in
terms of helping grants recipients to meet basic needs, and enabling them to make more choices,
such as buying food, accessing education and health care, as well as facilitating job searches
and starting small businesses. However, there was also evidence that showed that grants are
inadequate to entirely remove the “unfreedoms” facing the poor because the grants are too small
to adequately cover basic needs in the context of large family sizes, a serious and long-term
lack of resources, persistent unemployment, and high indebtedness. Further, these grants could
enable only a limited expansion of “choices”. This paper argues that social grants in South Africa
do enable recipients some “choices” although access to these “choices” is limited. It is envisaged
that this paper will help academics to think more about the extent of the developmental impact
of social grants in South Africa.

Keywords

Amartya Sen poverty social grants choices development as freedom
Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba. (2016). 7 - A qualitative application of Amartya Sen’s ‘development as freedom’ theory to an understanding of social grants in South Africa. African Sociological Review, 20(2), 102–121. https://doi.org/10.57054/asr.v20i2.3820
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Author Biography

Mzingaye Brilliant Xaba

Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

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