Title: Impact of social pensions on multiple dimensions of poverty, subjective wellbeing and solidarity across generations
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: The number of older persons (aged 60 and above) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is considerable and is expected to grow faster than anywhere else, increasing from 46 million in 2015 to 157 million by 2050. A majority of older Africans continue to reside in rural areas. However, an increasing number live in cities and other urban areas, often in informal settlements or 'slums' within contexts of chronic poverty. Over the past decade a growing number of SSA countries, such as Kenya, have introduced or expanded social pension programmes for vulnerable older people as a means to securing their livelihoods and enhancing their well-being. Kenya's Older Persons Cash Transfer Programme (OPCTP) was piloted in 2007 and has since expanded to reach over 164,000 beneficiaries with monthly stipends of US$23. The readiness of governments such as Kenya's to invest in such schemes has been spurred by evidence, largely from South Africa's long established social pension, of positive impacts of pension grants on beneficiary households. Such impacts include improvements in the economic, education or health opportunities of younger household members as a result of older beneficiaries' tendency to 'share' their pensions with younger generation kin. Much less attention however has been paid to diverging analyses that raise concerns over the impacts of social pensions on the well-being of older beneficiaries and inter-generational cohesion within their households and families. Such evidence suggests that younger and older generations' competing claims, and dependencies on the pension funds, create inter-generational conflict, often leading to violence and abuse directed at the older beneficiary. To date, little systematic empirical research has been conducted on the effects of the social pension scheme in Kenya, or of similar schemes in other SSA countries outside South Africa. As Kenya considers a further expansion of the pension scheme, profound knowledge gaps remain about the nature and drivers of household and individual-level and inter- generational impacts of the OPCTP and its overall effects on the well-being of older beneficiaries and their families in urban and rural contexts. A grasp of these areas is critical if governments are to fully understand and harness the potential of social pensions as a vehicle for broad poverty alleviation across age-groups, and the family transfers and norms that underpin this role. This research seeks to generate robust, urgently needed evidence to address the critical knowledge gaps in order to inform policy debates and thinking on the further development of the OPCTP and similar schemes in SSA, and to advance academic debates on poverty dynamics by contributing new theoretical perspectives on the ways in which family inter- generational relationships and transfers shape younger and older individuals' opportunities (or a lack thereof) for moving out of poverty. Evidence generation will focus on two informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, in which one of the project partners, APHRC, runs a demographic and health surveillance site, and will comprise both (i) quantitative analyses of existing data on older residents' households, to identify how the wellbeing of OPCTP beneficiaries has changed since receipt of the pension and (ii) extensive interviews with community informants and a sample of older pension beneficiaries and key members of their kin-networks, to explore their experiences and perspectives on the OPCTP and the ways in which it has impacted their lives.


Research activity codes: 8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE