Children, Citizenship and Child Support: The Child Support Grant in South Africa

By Francie Lund on October 11, 2012

"Around the world, states require that their citizens register as tax-payers, property owners, school students, patients, drivers, welfare recipients, and insured workers. The modern state seems almost to have become a registering machine, with the act of registration replacing taxation as the citizen’s most common encounter with the state.This book aims to explore this question – examining the work of registration in societies around the world through the last millennium and more. The volume opens up the politics of registration as a major new topic for historical and comparative research. In her chapter, Lund examine efforts to extend the infrastructure of states in Africa by adopting systems of universal registration, sharing the experience of the Child Support Grant in South Africa - an important part of a more comprehensive set of welfare benefits that are received by one-third of the South African population and serves as a global model for addressing poverty., suggesting the possibilities and the limits of the very influential rights-based approach to development policy.

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