PHA-Exch> The Effects of Cash Transfers on Child Health and Development in Rural Ecuador

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC) <ruglucia at paho.org>
crossposted from: EQUIDAD at listserv.paho.org

 *Does Money Matter? The Effects of Cash Transfers on Child Health and
Development in Rural Ecuador*


Christina Paxson, Center for Health and Wellbeing, Princeton
University, Norbert
Schady, World Bank

*World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4226, May 2007*


http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2007/05/03/000016406_20070503092958/Rendered/PDF/wps4226.pdf

* *"….This paper examines how a government-run cash transfer program
targeted to poor mothers in rural Ecuador influenced the health and
development of their children. This program is of particular interest
because, unlike other transfer programs that have been implemented recently
in Latin America, receipt of the cash transfers was not conditioned on
specific parental actions, such as taking children to health clinics or
sending them to school. This feature of the program makes it possible to
assess whether conditionality is necessary for programs to have beneficial
effects on children.

 Random assignment at the parish level is used to identify the program's
effects. We find that the cash transfer program had positive effects on the
physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional development of children, and the
treatment effects were substantially larger for the poorer children than for
less poor children.
Among the poorest children in our sample, children whose mothers were
eligible for transfers had outcomes that were on average more than 20
percent of a standard deviation higher than those for comparable children in
the control group. Treatment effects are somewhat larger for girls and for
children with more highly educated mothers. We examine three mechanisms:
- better nutrition,
- greater use of health care, and
- better parenting
through which the transfers might influence child development. The program
appeared to improve children's nutrition and increased the chance they were
treated for helminth infections. However, children in the treatment group
were not more likely to visit health clinics for growth monitoring, and the
mental health and parenting of their mothers did not improve.
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