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



Can Conditional Cash Transfer Programs Serve as Safety Nets in Keeping Children at School
                      and From Working when Exposed to Shocks?
      Author(s)            Alain de Janvry, Frederico Finan, Elisabeth Sadoulet, Renos Vakis
      Contact              rvakis@worldbank.org

      Country              Mexico

  Organizing Theme         Education and Skills, Economic opportunities and Access to Assets

       Status              The project is ongoing but the analysis is complete.

Intervention Category      Cash Transfer

       Sector              Social Protection
                           Income shocks on poor households are known to induce parents to take their children out
                           of school and send them to work when other risk-coping instruments are insufficient. State
                           dependence in school attendance further implies that these responses to short-run shocks
                           have long-term consequences on children’s human capital development. Conditional cash
                           transfer (CCT) programs, where the condition is on school attendance, have been shown to
                           be effective in increasing educational achievements and reducing child work. We ask the
                           question here of whether or not children who benefit from conditional transfers are
      Abstract             protected from the impacts of shocks on school enrollment and work. We develop a model
                           of a household’s decision regarding child school and work under conditions of a school re-
                           entry cost, conditional transfers, and exposure to shocks. We take model predictions to the
                           data using a panel from Mexico’s Progresa experience with randomized treatment. Results
                           show that there is strong state dependence in school enrollment. We find that the
                           conditional transfers helped protect enrollment, but did not refrain parents from increasing
                           child work in response to shocks. These results reveal that CCT programs can provide an
                           additional benefit to recipients in acting as safety nets for the schooling of the poor.
 Gender Connection         Gender Informed Analysis

  Gender Outcomes          Gender disaggregated school enrollment, child labor

     IE Design             Clustered Randomized Control Trial (Clustered at village level)
                           Progresa offers cash transfers to poor mothers in marginal rural communities conditional
                           on their children using health facilities on a regular basis and attending school between
    Intervention           third grade of primary and third grade of secondary. The payment is tailored to grade and
                           gender with mothers receiving between $70-255 per year per child. The transfer is slightly
                           larger for girls than boys of the same age.
 Intervention Period       The program started in 1997 and still exists today. Transfers are provided monthly.
                           The data consists of a census of households in 506 rural localities. About 2/3 of these
  Sample population
                           localities were randomly chosen to be incorporated in the CCT program.
                           This study compares households in villages where the Progresa program is rolled out to
Comparison conditions
                           villages where the program has not yet been implemented.


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



    Unit of analysis        Child Level

   Evaluation Period        Information was collected every six months from November 1997-November 2000
                            Shocks are highly prevalent and children have irregular periods of school enrollment.
                            Children who are taken out of school are less likely to re-enroll. The Progresa transfers
        Results             largely protected children from these shocks, however, they did not prevent child work
                            from increasing in response to shocks. Boys are more affected by unemployment of a
                            household head than girls, while girls are more affected by severe natural disasters.
Primary study limitations   There some sample attrition and missing observations in the data.

    Funding Source
                            De Janvry, A., Finan, F., Sadoulet, E., & Vakis, R. (2006). Can conditional cash transfer
      Reference(s)          programs serve as safety nets in keeping children at school and from working when
                            exposed to shocks?. Journal of Development Economics, 79(2), 349-373.
    Link to Studies
                            http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387806000095
       Microdata




    Last updated: 14 August 2013                                                                       2