IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/agreko/58213.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring Statistics South Africa’s national household surveys as sources of information about household-level food security

Author

Listed:
  • Aliber, Michael

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to an understanding of household-level food security in South Africa using publicly available household survey data from Statistics South Africa. The two datasets that are used in particular are the General Household Survey, an annual household survey that began in 2002, and the Income and Expenditure Survey of 2005/06. Because these surveys are not designed for the analysis of household-level food security, it is not possible to do the kind of detailed analysis made possible by purpose-designed surveys. However these datasets have some value in respect of understanding food security, namely: large sample sizes; the depth of complementary types of information that assist in contextualising the experience of food insecurity and, in the case of the General Household Survey, regularity. Among the findings are a decline in the experience of hunger during the period 2002–2007, and significantly lower food expenditure per capita in rural areas, suggesting a greater extent of ‘self-provisioning’ than is commonly assumed.

Suggested Citation

  • Aliber, Michael, 2009. "Exploring Statistics South Africa’s national household surveys as sources of information about household-level food security," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 48(4), pages 1-26, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:agreko:58213
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.58213
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/58213/files/3.%20Aliber.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.58213?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Horman Chitonge, 2014. "Land Redistribution and Zero Hunger Programs: Can South Africa Reap a Triple Dividend?," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(4), pages 380-406, December.
    2. Hosu, Sunday & Sibanda, Melusi & Mushunje, Abbyssinia, 2013. "Scenario simulation of small farms’ production efficiencies in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa," 2013 Fourth International Conference, September 22-25, 2013, Hammamet, Tunisia 161461, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    3. Chakona, Gamuchirai & Shackleton, Charlie M., 2019. "Food insecurity in South Africa: To what extent can social grants and consumption of wild foods eradicate hunger?," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 87-94.
    4. Giorgio d’Agostino & Margherita Scarlato & Silvia Napolitano, 2018. "Do Cash Transfers Promote Food Security? The Case of the South African Child Support Grant," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 27(4), pages 430-456.
    5. Ward, Catherine D. & Shackleton, Charlie M., 2016. "Natural Resource Use, Incomes, and Poverty Along the Rural–Urban Continuum of Two Medium-Sized, South African Towns," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 80-93.
    6. Elena Grimaccia & Alessia Naccarato, 2020. "Confirmatory factor analysis to validate a new measure of food insecurity: perceived and actual constructs," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1211-1232, August.
    7. L. J. S. Baiyegunhi & B. B. Oppong & G. M. Senyolo, 2016. "Mopane worm (Imbrasia belina) and rural household food security in Limpopo province, South Africa," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(1), pages 153-165, February.
    8. Jennifer Waidler & Stephen Devereux, 2019. "Social grants, remittances, and food security: does the source of income matter?," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(3), pages 679-702, June.
    9. Horman Chitonge, 2013. "Land Use and Rural Livelihoods in South Africa: Emerging Evidence from the Eastern Cape," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 2(1), pages 1-40, April.
    10. L. Baiyegunhi & B. Oppong & G. Senyolo, 2016. "Mopane worm (Imbrasia belina) and rural household food security in Limpopo province, South Africa," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(1), pages 153-165, February.
    11. Aliber, Michael, 2015. "The direct and indirect economic contribution of small-scale black agriculture in South Africa," International Journal of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (IJAGST), SvedbergOpen, vol. 54(2), September.
    12. Jacobs, Peter T., 2010. "Household Food Insecurity, Rapid Food Price Inflation and the Economic Downturn," 2010 AAAE Third Conference/AEASA 48th Conference, September 19-23, 2010, Cape Town, South Africa 96436, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    13. Tefera, Ejigayhu Sisay, 2011. "Determinants And Dimensions Of Household Food Insecurity In Addis Ababa City, Ethiopia," Research Theses 157505, Collaborative Masters Program in Agricultural and Applied Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer/Household Economics;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:agreko:58213. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeasaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.