Distributional Policies and Social Cohesion in a High-Unemployment Setting
This paper studies the impact of distributional policies on social cohesion. The focus is on South Africa, a country with the highest unemployment rate worldwide and a major destination hub for the forcibly displaced. The paper uses a regression di...
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099248306232210489/IDU05fde194806af0042ac0855a001f824cc60ff http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37597 |
| Summary: | This paper studies the impact of
distributional policies on social cohesion. The focus is on
South Africa, a country with the highest unemployment rate
worldwide and a major destination hub for the forcibly
displaced. The paper uses a regression discontinuity design
based on the eligibility rule of an unconditional cash
transfer program (Old Age Pension) together with multiple
rounds of the country’s Social Attitudes Survey and
estimates the impact of the cash transfer to the local
population on over 100 variables capturing different
dimensions of social cohesion, while accounting for multiple
hypothesis testing. Results show a limited impact of the
transfer on social cohesion. Transfer increases life
satisfaction and views favorable towards racial diversity.
However, it has only a marginal effect on interpersonal
trust and a very small effect on attitudes towards
immigration. These findings are consistent with theoretical
models where anti-immigrant behaviors are not the result of
low-income but rather due to non-wage factors such as ethnic
background or language barriers. |
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