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Childhood Economic Well-Being in South Africa: Construction of a Theoretically-Grounded Empirically-Derived Multidimensional Measure

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Abstract

This study uses the bioecological framework and methodology to select items for and to test a multidimensional structure of a measure of children’s economic well-being in a multi-community sample of children (7–11 years) and their households (N = 1958) from KwaZulu-Natal, a poor and under-served region of South Africa. Economic well-being was assessed using questionnaires completed by children’s caregivers and household heads. Exploratory factor analysis of four random split halves identified three dimensions of economic well-being: Fiscal Appraisal (subjective experiences of access to/allocation of resources), Material Assets (durable goods and living environment), and Fiscal Capacity (traditional measures of poverty: income, expenditures, employment). Confirmatory factor analysis verified the higher order model of economic well-being with the three dimensions. Invariance testing using multiple group factor analysis indicated confidence for use of this measure with varying types of communities in South Africa. The results reflect the multidimensional nature of economic well-being. Thus, the often-used money metric measures of poverty likely paint an incomplete picture of children’s actual economic well-being. Because our sample consists of impoverished households, our measure of economic well-being is sensitive to variation at the deep end of poverty. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.

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  • 17 January 2019

    The correct author names are presented above. The original article has been corrected.

Notes

  1. A two-factor confirmatory factory analysis was tested to explore combining the highly correlated factors, Fiscal Appraisal and Material Assets (r = .793, p < .001). However, based on fit (RMSEA = .037; CFI = .899; TLI = .883) and interpretability, the three-factor solution was retained.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge The SIZE Research Group for their contributions to the project that made work possible.

Funding

NYU Global TIES for Children: Transforming Intervention Effectiveness and Scale provided the funding for the statistical package used in the analyses in this paper. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1R01HD055137) funded the SIZE project. New York University Abu Dhabi Research Institute funded Dr. Aber’s work with the project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Ashley Turbeville & Sharon L. Weinberg

  2. NYU Global TIES, New York University, 246 Greene Street, 417E, New York, NY, 10003, USA

    J. Lawrence Aber

  3. DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Linda Richter & Alastair van Heerden

  4. Human and Social Development Research Programme, Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa

    Alastair van Heerden

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  1. Ashley Turbeville
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Correspondence to Ashley Turbeville.

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The Research Ethics Committee at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in South Africa and the Institutional Review Boards at New York University (NYU) approved all study procedures. Data was collected after informed consent was obtained.

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The original version of this article was revised due to incorrect author names.

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Turbeville, A., Aber, J.L., Weinberg, S.L. et al. Childhood Economic Well-Being in South Africa: Construction of a Theoretically-Grounded Empirically-Derived Multidimensional Measure. Child Ind Res 12, 1855–1878 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-018-9613-9

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