Women's Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, and Schooling in Nicaragua

The Social Safety Net (Red de Protección Social, RPS) program in Nicaragua is one of many conditional cash transfer programs that pay households cash stipends in exchange for school attendance and regular visits to health clinics by the children. A key feature is that payments go to the female head...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Gitter, Seth R., Barham, Bradford L.
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	World Bank 2012
Subjects:	children education education expenditures enrollment groups nutrition participation school attendance schooling women
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4480

id	okr-10986-4480
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-44802021-04-23T14:02:18Z Women's Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, and Schooling in Nicaragua Gitter, Seth R. Barham, Bradford L. children education education expenditures enrollment groups nutrition participation school attendance schooling women The Social Safety Net (Red de Protección Social, RPS) program in Nicaragua is one of many conditional cash transfer programs that pay households cash stipends in exchange for school attendance and regular visits to health clinics by the children. A key feature is that payments go to the female head of household. Previous research suggests that exogenous transfers to women are more likely to be spent on their children's health, nutrition, and education and thus to reinforce the goals of these programs. Randomized experimental data from RPS are used to test for heterogeneous program impacts on school enrollment and spending based on a woman's power, as proxied by her years of schooling relative to her husband's years of schooling. The results confirm previous findings that more household resources are devoted to children when women are more powerful. However, when a woman's power greatly exceeds her husband's, additional female power reduces school enrollment. RPS impacts on schooling are much larger than the expected income effects estimated from the control group, although no evidence is found that female power alters the impact of RPS on school enrollment. The conditionality of RPS is probably decisive. While RPS significantly increases food and education expenditures, the impact is attributable primarily to income effects. 2012-03-30T07:12:37Z 2012-03-30T07:12:37Z 2008-05-30 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4480 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank Journal Article Uruguay Nicaragua
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	children education education expenditures enrollment groups nutrition participation school attendance schooling women
spellingShingle	children education education expenditures enrollment groups nutrition participation school attendance schooling women Gitter, Seth R. Barham, Bradford L. Women's Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, and Schooling in Nicaragua
geographic_facet	Uruguay Nicaragua
description	The Social Safety Net (Red de Protección Social, RPS) program in Nicaragua is one of many conditional cash transfer programs that pay households cash stipends in exchange for school attendance and regular visits to health clinics by the children. A key feature is that payments go to the female head of household. Previous research suggests that exogenous transfers to women are more likely to be spent on their children's health, nutrition, and education and thus to reinforce the goals of these programs. Randomized experimental data from RPS are used to test for heterogeneous program impacts on school enrollment and spending based on a woman's power, as proxied by her years of schooling relative to her husband's years of schooling. The results confirm previous findings that more household resources are devoted to children when women are more powerful. However, when a woman's power greatly exceeds her husband's, additional female power reduces school enrollment. RPS impacts on schooling are much larger than the expected income effects estimated from the control group, although no evidence is found that female power alters the impact of RPS on school enrollment. The conditionality of RPS is probably decisive. While RPS significantly increases food and education expenditures, the impact is attributable primarily to income effects.
format	Journal Article
author	Gitter, Seth R. Barham, Bradford L.
author_facet	Gitter, Seth R. Barham, Bradford L.
author_sort	Gitter, Seth R.
title	Women's Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, and Schooling in Nicaragua
title_short	Women's Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, and Schooling in Nicaragua
title_full	Women's Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, and Schooling in Nicaragua
title_fullStr	Women's Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, and Schooling in Nicaragua
title_full_unstemmed	Women's Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, and Schooling in Nicaragua
title_sort	women's power, conditional cash transfers, and schooling in nicaragua
publisher	World Bank
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4480
_version_	1764391547848097792

Women's Power, Conditional Cash Transfers, and Schooling in Nicaragua

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