Support for social welfare in South Africa: Insights from national attitudinal data

Abstract

This study contributes to the South African literature on social welfare by providing an assessment of attitudes towards social welfare redistribution and attitudes towards government spending on the poor. The study investigates the individual characteristics that correlate with attitudes towards social welfare and government spending on the poor. The particular characteristics that are of interest in this study are socioeconomic status and religiosity. The data from the 2018 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) are used in this study. The study finds that in South Africa, religiosity promotes greater pro-social attitudes. Subjective socioeconomic status does not significantly increase or decrease adults’ attitudes towards the provision of social grants. However, adults that subjectively identify as being poor are more likely to support pro-poor spending than adults that identify as being wealthy. The findings of this study are mostly consistent with findings from studies done in other countries