Social Cash Transfer mediating socio-economic inequalities faced by the elderly

Abstract

The study aimed at investigating how community-based mediation can be used to promote the socio-economic rights of the elderly in the implementation of the social cash transfer scheme. Both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were adopted to collect comprehensive data from the participants. 10 Social Welfare Officers were interviewed on their role of administering the SCT and 102 elderly participants from the age of 65 years were aided in responding to the questionnaires by asking them questions. Participants were included based on their willingness and voluntary participation. Including that one was 65 years of age and above, and was a beneficiary of the SCT. Thus, the total number of participants who were available for the study were 112 distributed as 102 elderly recipients of the SCT and 10 social welfare officers. A semi-structured interview of 15-30 minutes was used as a research technique to collect the data from the social welfare officers. The findings show that the Social Cash Transfer (SCT) programme is key in mediating the social-economic inequalities faced by the elderly to other members of their community. It was observed that the mediation varied based on the level of formal education attained by the participants. Participants with tertiary education revealed better utilization of SCT and improvement of livelihoods.