Do conditional cash transfers to low income families lead to better education outcomes?
Conditional cash transfer programs (CCT) have been adopted by governments of many low and middle income countries worldwide to help alleviate poverty and increase human capital.
According to the World Bank, conditional cash transfers are:
“…programs that transfer cash, generally to poor households, on the condition that those households make prespecified investments in the human capital of their children.”
In Latin America, where CCT programs are the most common, they target millions of households with children. Programs like Mexico’s Opportunidades or Brazil’s Bolsa Familia have been credited with increasing educational attainments such school enrollment or attendance as well as health improvements such as the reduction of malnutrition. If CCT programs really do improve school enrollment rates, which research design methods can we use to assess this impact?
Causal Theory
Families are more likely to keep children enrolled in school if they are financially capable to do so. Therefore, children from families who receive cash transfers will have higher attendance rates at school than those who do not. The cash transfer is the independent variable and school attendance…show more content… Reverse causality would only be possible if the CCT program was only being implemented in areas with low school enrollment rates. This seems unlikely as the CCT program does not include conditions based on schools, geographic regions but rather on income levels. However, an argument could be made that the CCT program is aimed at low income families and these families often live in regions with low school attainment rates. Regardless, the data would demonstrate a correlation and not