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Energy use patterns and trends: the impact of energy policy in South African low-income households

  • Authors: Israel-Akinbo, Sylvia Olawumi
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: Energy policy -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Energy security -- South Africa , Households -- Economic aspects -- South Africa , Poor -- Energy assistance -- South Africa , Poor -- South Africa , University of Cape Town. National Income Dynamics Study , Free Basic Electricity Policy (South Africa) , Income and Expenditure Survey (South Africa)
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62264 , vital:28148
  • Description: Energy poverty is a growing concern especially amongst low-income populations in developing countries. The transition to modern energy carriers is associated with welfare improvement and it is considered as an important developmental goal to achieve, in order to eradicate energy poverty. As such, the South African government has made energy poverty an issue of policy focus. Literature abounds with different measures of energy poverty; energy programmes and policies are also aimed at improving the welfare of the low-income households in terms of basic services such as electricity. As a point of entry into this study, this thesis explored energy use patterns and trends in low-income South African households. The research objectives addressed in the study included investigating the extent of energy poverty through a multidimensional energy poverty index, examining the extent to which the 'energy ladder' and 'energy stacking' models explains energy transition patterns and to examining whether the Free Basic Electricity Policy has impacted on energy choices and energy poverty. In order to contribute to energy poverty and energy policy discussion in South Africa, this study has investigated the dimensions of energy poverty amongst low-income South African households from these three different perspectives (objectives). A positivist approach, by using a quantitative method was used to underpin the study. The study utilised secondary data, which were from the National Income Dynamics Survey and Income and Expenditure Survey. The former was used for the analysis of the multidimensional energy poverty index and energy transition patterns whilst the latter was used for the analysis of the impact of the Free Basic Electricity Policy. The four waves of the National Income Dynamics Survey, with 2008 as the base year and the 2010/2011 version of the Income and Expenditure Survey were used whilst the data were processed through the quantitative software package, STATA version 12. The data were then analysed using the multidimensional energy poverty framework by Nussbaumer et al. (2011) and econometric models, which best fit the objectives. The result of the panel analysis, which assesses the multidimensional energy poverty for low-income households in South Africa showed that low-income households in both urban and rural areas are in a moderate state of energy poverty but different levels. However, the cross-sectional analysis revealed that the percentage of low-income households that are energy poor is reducing for the rural households but increasing for their urban counterparts from 2008 to 2014. The panel and cross-sectional results of the contribution of the energy dimensions in multidimensional energy poverty shows that the low-income households are especially energy poor in terms of heating fuel. The findings from the econometric estimates partly confirmed an energy ladder behaviour for the energy choice for cooking. An energy stacking behaviour was confirmed for the low- income households for these energy services - heating and lighting. Moreover, it was found that with respect to cooking and heating, low-income households living in a modern dwelling, having a small household size and residing in an urban area are less likely to use transitional or traditional energy carriers but most likely to use modern energy carriers. In addition, low-income households are more likely to use modern energy carriers for their cooking and heating in 2010, 2012 and 2014 than in 2008. For lighting energy service, low- income households living in a modern dwelling in an urban settlement are most likely to use modern energy carriers for lighting and less likely to use transitional energy carriers or candles. Only in 2014 were low-income households more likely to use modern energy carriers for lighting than in 2008. The results further showed that modern energy carriers have the highest probability of being preferred for lighting followed by cooking and lastly heating. Also emerging from the findings are that more urban low-income households are receiving the Free Basic Electricity (FBE) grant than their counterparts in the rural areas. The probability of low-income households owning entertainment/education appliance and food preserving appliance is positively influenced by access to Free Basic Electricity. The low- income households living in an urban settlement and in a modern type of dwelling supported this result. However, household size does not seems to support this result should it grow larger.
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  • Date Issued: 2018

From human to human(e): an educator's reflexive narrative journeying

  • Authors: Rajoo, Neeranjini
  • Date: 2013
  • Subjects: Elementary school teachers -- South Africa , Poor -- South Africa , Humanity -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
  • Identifier: vital:9588 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1021001
  • Description: From human to human(e) is an exploration of ways of coming to understand what it means to be(come) human and to belong (Vanier, 2003) while living and working as an educator in a disadvantaged community. In this sense, the purpose of this dissertation is the exploration of understanding what it might mean to be a ‘Foundation Phase’ (Primary/Elementary School) educator in a context of constructed poverty and disadvantage (Swanson 2004), thereby contributing to the field of education in this area, whilst embracing a practice of freedom and fostering apertures of hope and transcendence. This reflexive, rhizomatic narrative journeying (ibid) attempts to reach out to humanity via an interdisciplinary and arts-based approach that attempts to address concerns of inequity and pedagogical in-access and evokes the spiritual, emotive and philosophical in drawing attention to the ethical irresponsibility and socio-spiritual repercussions of ignoring social disadvantage in education. It includes inherences and impressions of humaneness in education. It seeks both introspection and insight into what ‘the human condition’ might mean to a just and robust education of children. In this sense, it is a personal inquiry as reflexive narrative journeying (ibid) based on twenty seven years of teaching in a primary school in a vulnerable and economically-impoverished community in the province of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. As a writing-as-inquiry journeying, I engage with ‘critical rhizomatic narrative’ methodology (Swanson, 2004) as it resonates with the explorations of lived experiences that pertain to emotions, feelings, values and spirituality and because it enables a process of seeking what it might mean to be(come) human(e). This study is a philosophical rhizomatic narrative rendering which is an approach to(wards) understandings of personal growth and spirituality through understanding the various emergent journeys of life and the meanings that we can elicit from them to become more human and thus more humane.
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  • Date Issued: 2013

A learning state?: a case study of the post-1994 South African welfare regime

  • Authors: Mungwashu, Sthembiso Handinawangu
  • Date: 2011
  • Subjects: South African Social Security Agency , South Africa -- Social policy , Poor -- South Africa , Social service -- South Africa , Public welfare -- South Africa , Social service -- Government policy -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
  • Identifier: vital:3325 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003113 , South African Social Security Agency , South Africa -- Social policy , Poor -- South Africa , Social service -- South Africa , Public welfare -- South Africa , Social service -- Government policy -- South Africa
  • Description: This thesis examines the processes of policymaking in South Africa, as expressed through the shifts in income maintenance policy. The thesis focuses on the processes leading to the establishment of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA), as its case study. SASSA is the institutional framework for the delivery of social grants. Our intention is to test the efficacy of what we have called ‘state learning’ in the South African context. Therefore, the overall aim of the study is to assess the capacity of the ‘state to learn’ in the process of policymaking as expressed through the shifts in social grant administration and the institutional framework of social welfare in South Africa. The subsidiary goals of the research includes mapping changes in the system of social grants administration since 1994 in order to assess the sources of the shifts in its institutional framework; to assess processes and responses within the state that result in policy shifts and the extent to which these can be considered dimensions of state learning; to assess the power of ideas in the policymaking process and to assess the influence of non-state agencies/actors in policy contestation and learning processes. This is essential, because social policy, especially welfare policy research in post-apartheid South Africa, has focused on the economic value of policies and not the political processes in policymaking. For the framework of analysis the study draws on theories of learning, especially at the organizational or institutional level. We start from the perspective that policymaking and implementation cannot be reduced to a neatly ordered schema (Lamb: 1987:6). Further, that policy change and policymaking are “iterative, haphazard, and highly political processes, in which the apparently logical sequences of decision-making, may turn out to be the reverse” (Lamb, 1987:6). This is mainly because state building is a complex affair and a contested terrain; policy learning and making are neither benign nor do they involve the state working in isolation (Sabatier, 1998). To understand processes of policymaking in South Africa, we rely on content analysis of primary and secondary materials or documents and in-depth interviews with key informants involved in the policy process. The documentary sources include records of parliamentary debates, green and white papers on social welfare, ANC party documents, presidential task force reports, newspapers, magazines and court judgments. The study reveals that the establishment of SASSA lends itself to the idea of ‘state learning’. Learning is indicated in South Africa by the capacity and ability of the state to stimulate ideas, debate ideas to establish ideational matrixes as well as paradigms that have informed the development of policy, take ideas and implement them to try and solve mismatches between the intention of the state and the outcomes and the ability of the state to produce policy.
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  • Date Issued: 2011

A study of some aspects of the poor white problem in South Africa

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