Publication: The Short-Term Impacts of a Schooling Conditional Cash Transfer Program on the Sexual Behavior of Young Women

Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (585.69 KB)
1,600 downloads

English Text (67.59 KB)
629 downloads
Date
2009-10-01
ISSN
Published
2009-10-01
Author(s)
Baird, Sarah
Chirwa, Ephraim
McIntosh, Craig
Abstract
Recent evidence suggests that conditional cash transfer programs for schooling are effective in raising school enrollment and attendance. However, there is also reason to believe that such programs can affect other outcomes, such as the sexual behavior of their young beneficiaries. Zomba Cash Transfer Program is a randomized, ongoing conditional cash transfer intervention targeting young women in Malawi that provides incentives (in the form of school fees and cash transfers) to current schoolgirls and recent dropouts to stay in or return to school. An average offer of US$10/month conditional on satisfactory school attendance plus direct payment of secondary school fees led to significant declines in early marriage, teenage pregnancy, and self-reported sexual activity among program beneficiaries after just one year of program implementation. For program beneficiaries who were out of school at baseline, the probability of getting married and becoming pregnant declined by more than 40 percent and 30 percent, respectively. In addition, the incidence of the onset of sexual activity was 38 percent lower among all program beneficiaries than the control group. Overall, these results suggest that conditional cash transfer programs not only serve as useful tools for improving school attendance, but may also reduce sexual activity, teen pregnancy, and early marriage.
Citation
Baird, Sarah; Chirwa, Ephraim; McIntosh, Craig; Ozler, Berk. 2009. The Short-Term Impacts of a Schooling Conditional Cash Transfer Program on the Sexual Behavior of Young Women. Paper is funded by the Knowledge for Change Program (KCP),Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 5089,Impact Evaluation series ; no. IE 40. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4281 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
  • Publication
    Is US Trade Policy Reshaping Global Supply Chains ?
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-01) Freund, Caroline ; Mattoo, Aaditya ; Mulabdic, Alen ; Ruta, Michele
    This paper examines the reshaping of supply chains using detailed US 10-digit import data (tariff-line level) between 2017 and 2022. The results show that while US-China decoupling in bilateral trade is real, supply chains remain intertwined with China. Over the period, China’s share of US imports fell from 22 to 16 percent. The paper shows that the decline is due to US tariffs. US imports from China are being replaced with imports from large developing countries with revealed comparative advantage in a product. Countries replacing China tend to be deeply integrated into China’s supply chains and are experiencing faster import growth from China, especially in strategic industries. Put differently, to displace China on the export side, countries must embrace China’s supply chains. Within products, the reorientation of trade is consistent with a “China + 1” strategy, as opposed to diversified sourcing across multiple countries. There is some evidence of nearshoring, but it is exclusive to border nations, and there is no consistent evidence of reshoring. Despite the significant reshaping, China remained the top supplier of imported goods to the US in 2022.
  • Publication
    Fiscal Policy Effects on Poverty and Inequality in Cambodia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-09-25) Karamba, Wendy ; Myck, Michal ; Trzcinski, Kajetan ; Tong, Kimsun
    This study assesses the short-term impact of fiscal policy, and its individual elements, on poverty and inequality in Cambodia as of 2019. It applies the Commitment to Equity methodology to data from the Cambodia Socio-economic Survey of 2019/20 and fiscal administrative data from various government ministries, departments, and agencies for the assessment. The study presents among the first empirical evidence on the impact of taxes and social spending on households in Cambodia. The study finds that: (i) Cambodia’s 2019 fiscal system reduces inequality by 0.95 Gini index points, with the largest reduction in inequality created by in-kind transfers from spending on primary education; (ii) while Cambodia’s fiscal system reduces inequality, the degree of inequality reduction is small in international comparison; and (iii) low-income households pay more in indirect taxes than they receive in cash benefits in the short term to offset the burden. As a result, the number of poor and vulnerable individuals who, in the short term, experience net cash subtractions from their incomes is greater than the number of poor and vulnerable individuals who experience net additions. Fiscal policy can deliver more net benefits to poor and vulnerable households through expanding social assistance spending. Cambodia has embarked on this expansion during the coronavirus pandemic, bringing it closer in line with comparators.
  • Publication
    How to Deal with Exchange Rate Risk in Infrastructure and Other Long-Lived Projects
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-09-19) de Castro, Luciano ; Frischtak, Claudio ; Rodrigues, Arthur
    Most developing economies rely on foreign capital to finance their infrastructure needs. These projects are usually structured as long-term (25–35 years) franchises that pay in local currency. If investors evaluate their returns in terms of foreign currency, exchange rate volatility introduces risk that may reduce the level of investment below what would be socially optimal. This paper proposes a mechanism with very general features that hedges exchange rate fluctuation by adjusting the concession period. Such mechanism does not imply additional costs to the government and could be offered as a zero-cost option to lenders and investors exposed to currency fluctuations. This general mechanism is illustrated with three alternative specifications and data from a 25-year highway franchise is used to simulate how they would play out in eight different countries that exhibit diverse exchange rate trajectories.
  • Publication
    Inequality of Opportunity and Investment Choices
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-09-19) Brock, J. Michelle ; Bussolo, Maurizio
    Inequality of opportunity leads to misallocation of human capital and can affect economies via its impact on individual economic decision making. This paper studies the impact of inequality of opportunity on investment, using a laboratory experiment. The experiment randomized inequality of opportunity, then subjects chose to invest in a risky asset or savings. The results suggest that inequality of opportunity impacts investment choices only for people who are penalized by their circumstances and only once they learn the impact of inequality of opportunity on their relative position in the income distribution. This disadvantaged group invests more often and invests higher shares of their earnings than the control and advantaged groups. The fact that both inequality of opportunity and knowledge of relative position need to be present for the impact on investment to materialize points to the importance of peer effects. More broadly, the paper highlights the relevance of social preferences for understanding the effects of inequality of opportunity on individual decision making.
  • Publication
    Changes in Household Dynamics in South Yemen
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-11-29) Ishak, Phoebe W. ; Aghajanian, Alia ; Ghorpade, Yashodhan
    This paper contributes to an important agenda by studying how female participation in household decision making has been affected by the ongoing civil conflict in the Republic of Yemen in areas under the control of the Internationally Recognized Government. The preliminary results find an increase in women’s participation in decision making since the start of the conflict. Using a difference-in-difference approach that controls for individual and household characteristics, the analysis finds that this result is driven by households living in districts with medium intensity conflict as compared to low intensity conflict. This result holds up to a series of robustness checks and is explained by changes in household composition, whereby men are more likely to leave the household in conflict affected districts, leaving women in charge of household decisions.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Associated content
Citations