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Governments often provide some form of social assistance to vulnerable groups. The right to social security is enshrined in the South African Constitution and the Social Assistance Act 13 of 2004. The country provides for a child support grant to single parents or caregivers who are low-income earners. The impact of the child support grant on teenage pregnancy in South Africa has aroused interest in the last couple of years, sparking debate that it may be encouraging teenage pregnancy. However, empirical evidence has been produced to confirm this relationship. This study examines the relationship between receiving the child support grant and being pregnant with another child in two national data sets using logistic regression analysis and empirical data. The results indicate that teenagers who receive the child support grant are significantly less likely to be pregnant with another child compared with teenagers who do not receive the child support grant.

Since the outbreak of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s, various organisations and researchers have produced statistics on HIV/AIDS including HIV prevalence, incidence, number of AIDS cases, AIDS-related mortality as well as life expectancy at birth in the context of HIV/AIDS. Until recently HIV-prevalence statistics as well as models projecting the impact of HIV/AIDS utilised HIV-prevalence statistics based on women attending antenatal clinics as population-based prevalence statistics were non-existent. Among others, the extrapolation of HIV-prevalence statistics from surveillance sites to the general population has been questioned. Recent statistics on HIV-prevalence from population-based surveys strongly suggest that HIV-prevalence in many countries may not be as high as earlier estimated and projected. In addition, model estimates of HIV/AIDS-prevalence and impact on mortality often use conventional model life tables such as the Coale-Demeny Regional, UN, and Brass standard life tables, which in the case of South Africa give female life expectancy at birth plummeting from about 65 years in the mid-1990s to around 49-50 years in 2005. The standard life tables often employed in these estimates do not take account of the 'hump' in the mortality curve due to AIDS-related deaths as these standard mortality schedules were developed prior to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Given this background, this paper provides a critical look at recent statistics on infant mortality rates and life expectancies at birth in the context of HIV/AIDS in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa with particular reference to South Africa.

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