Beyond Cash Transfers: Welfare Attitudes and Perceived Well-Being among Low-Income Informal Workers in Post-COVID-19 Ghana

Debates surrounding welfare dependency have persisted for decades, with research disproving widespread assumptions that welfare induces laziness and long-term dependence, while others highlight potential intergenerational adverse effects. However, the state of these debates remains largely unexplored within the context of post-COVID-19 economies, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This study contributes to the discourse by examining welfare attitudes and their psychological well-being implications among low-income informal workers in Ghana, specifically focusing on cash transfers amidst concerns of dependency and social stigma. Drawing on 42 semi-structured interviews, the study uncovers complex perceptions of cash transfers from a self-interest lens, which were seen as a critical form of citizenship recognition, a path to alleviating economic hardship, and a source of social stigmatisation. Most of them were worried and unhappy about being labelled as “lazy” for taking cash transfers from the government.

Nevertheless, they were unperturbed about such labels as they saw cash transfers as an opportunity to expand their business considering the worsened economic conditions post-COVID-19 pandemic. However, consistent with the social values hypothesis, most participants favoured labour market-focused interventions such as low-interest business loans and broader economic policies to foster sustainable livelihoods over subsistence-level cash transfers, which others could misconstrue as “laziness”. Unfortunately, the challenges in receiving preferred governmental support triggered states of despair and concerns about their rights as citizens. Therefore, the paper argues that for social protection policies to be effective, they must transcend subsistence concerns and align with beneficiaries’ broader expectations of sustainable resilience, self-sufficiency, and economic empowerment.