81379
                           enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database



                                       Income Shocks and Adolescent Mental Health

 Author(s)     Sarah Baird, Jacobus de Hoop, Berk Ozler
  Contact      bozler@worldbank.org

  Country      Malawi
Organizing
               Voice and Agency
 Theme
   Status      Completed
Intervention
             Conditional Cash Transfers
  Category
   Sector      Social Development
               We investigate the effects of a positive income shock on mental health among adolescent girls using evidence from a cash
               transfer experiment in Malawi. Offers of cash transfers strongly reduced psychological distress among baseline schoolgirls.
               However, these large beneficial effects declined with increases in the transfer amount offered to the parents conditional
 Abstract
               on regular school attendance by the adolescent girls. Improved physical health, increased school attendance, personal
               consumption, and leisure contributed to the effects. There was also strong evidence of increased psychological distress
               among untreated baseline schoolgirls in treatment areas. All of these effects dissipated soon after the program ended.
 Gender
               Gender Focused Intervention
Connection
 Gender
               Psychological agency
Outcomes
 IE Design     Clustered Randomized Control Trial (Clustered at Enumeration Area level)
             There were three treatment arms. The CCT arm provided a monthly payment that varied randomly from $4-10 per month
Intervention to parents and $1-5 per month to the child conditioned on regular school attendance. The UCT arm was identical to the
             CCT except there was no condition on attendance.
Intervention
             Monthly transfers were made from 2008 to the end of 2009; in total the intervention lasted 2 years
   Period
             The sample was gathered from the Zomba District in Souther Malawi. The district is divided into 550 enumeration areas,
             each having about 250 households. 176 enumeration areas were selected. A listing of all never-married females aged 13-22
             was selected. The sample was stratified into baseline dropouts and baseline schoolgirls. In total there were 3,796 young
   Sample
             women and an average of 5.1 dropouts and 16.5 schoolgirls per EA. In 88 Enumeration areas all baseline dropouts were
 population
             offered conditional cash transfers. The 88 treatment enumeration areas were then randomly divided into 3 treatment
             groups for school girls; in 46 EAs schoolgirls received a conditional cash transfer, in 27 EAs they received unconditional
             cash transfer and in 15 EAs no schoolgirl received a transfer.
Comparison The study compares girls receiving conditional cash transfers, unconditional cash transfer and no cash transfer. The study
 conditions also compares different sizes of conditional and unconditional cash transfers.
   Unit of
             Individual Level
  analysis
 Evaluation Baseline data was collected between October 2007 and January 2008, the first follow up data was collected 12 months
   Period    later, the second follow up data was collected after the completion of the intervention.
             While the intervention was ongoing, baseline schoolgirls who were offered unconditional cash transfers were about 14
   Results   p.p. less likely to be suffering from psychological distress than the control group. Those who were offered conditional
             cash transfers also had a significant reduction in psychological distress, but the impact (6 p.p.) was significantly smaller

             Last updated: 14 August 2013                                                                       1
                            enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database


                than the unconditional cash transfer. For conditional cash transfer, additional size of the transfer leads to an increase in
                psychological distress. There was also a significant increase in psychological distress among school girls who lived in
                treatment areas but were not invited to participate in the program, and a decrease among female siblings of schoolgirls
                who had been offered the transfer.
  Primary
    study       The cutoff scores for the mental health survey were not validated in Malawi.
limitations
  Funding       Global Development Network, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NBER Africa Project, #IE Open Window, the World
   Source       Bank
                Baird, S., De Hoop, J., & Özler, B. (2013). Income shocks and adolescent mental health. Journal of Human Resources,
Reference(s)
                48(2), 370-403.
  Link to
  Studies       http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/48/2/370.short
 Microdata
                http://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/1005http://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/1005




               Last updated: 14 August 2013                                                                         2