Comparison with existing literature
The influence of the child support grant on teenage
pregnancy has been a controversial topic. Introduced in
1998, it has proven to have a big impact on the enrolment
of children in school and has helped unemployed people
to take care of their children’s needs. Teenagers in this
study reported that the child support grant is also seen as a
way of ensuring some sort of income for the family or for the
teenage mother herself. However, the Alliance for Children’s
Entitlement to Social Security argues that research has failed to show any link between teenage pregnancy and
the uptake of the grant.45 Another study also argues that
there is no support for the belief that the child support grant
induces teenage pregnancy as there has been a decrease
in the teenage fertility rate in South Africa over the same
period.41 The number of factors that influence the fertility
rate, however, are clearly more complex than just the child
support grant46 and rates have also fallen worldwide, also
in countries without such a grant.41 The role of the child
support grant on teenage pregnancy therefore remains
unclear and requires further study.