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



                  Conditional Cash Transfers, Adult Work Incentives, and Poverty

      Author(s)            Emmanuel Skoufias and Vincenzo di Maro
      Contact              eskoufias@worldbank.org

      Country              Mexico

  Organizing Theme         Economic Opportunities and Access to Assets

       Status              The Project is ongoing but the evaluation is complete

Intervention Category      Cash Transfer

       Sector              Social Protection
                           Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aim to alleviate poverty through monetary and
                           in-kind benefits, as well as reduce future levels of poverty by encouraging investments in
                           education, health, and nutrition. The success of CCT programs at reducing poverty
                           depends on whether, and the extent to which, cash transfers affect adult work incentives.
                           The authors examine whether the PROGRESA program of Mexico affects adult
                           participation in the labor market and overall adult leisure time, and they link these effects to
      Abstract
                           the impact of the program on poverty. Using the experimental design of PROGRESA's
                           evaluation sample, the authors find that the program does not have any significant effect
                           on adult labor force participation and leisure time. Their findings on adult work incentives
                           are reinforced further by the result that PROGRESA leads to a substantial reduction in
                           poverty. The poverty reduction effects are stronger for the poverty gap and severity of
                           poverty measures.
 Gender Connection         Gender Informed Analysis

  Gender Outcomes          Gender disaggregated labor force participation, income

     IE Design             Clustered Randomized Control Trial (Clustered at locality level)
                           PROGRESA is a conditional cash transfer that provides poor families with children in
                           grades 3-9 with cash every two months if the children attend school more than 85% of the
    Intervention
                           time. PROGRESA also provides basic preventative health interventions and nutritional
                           supplements for young children. The payment is distributed directly to the mother.
 Intervention Period       The program began in 1997. Households receive the transfer once a month.
                           The sample consists of 23,000 households, 183,646 individuals (89,207 adult males and
                           94,439 adult females). About 65% of the sample received the program. These households
  Sample population
                           came from 506 localities, 320 of whom received the treatment, while 186 served as
                           controls.
Comparison conditions      The control groups started receiving the benefits 2 years after the treatment group.

   Unit of analysis        Individual and Household Level



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


   Evaluation Period        November 1997- November 1999
                            PROGRESA does not have any significant effect on adult labor supply choices. In
                            particular, the results show that there has been no particular reduction in labor market
        Results
                            participation rates for men or women. PROGRESA also leads to substantial reductions in
                            poverty, the poverty gap is reduced by 30%.
Primary study limitations

    Funding Source
                            Skoufias, E., & Di Maro, V. (2008). Conditional cash transfers, adult work incentives, and
      Reference(s)
                            poverty. The Journal of Development Studies, 44(7), 935-960.
    Link to Studies
                            http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220380802150730
       Microdata




    Last updated: 14 August 2013                                                                      2