Does Workfare Work Well? : The Case of the Employment Generation Program for the Poorest in Bangladesh

Cho, Yoonyoung ; Ruthbah, Ummul

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SOCIAL ASSISTANCE;    WORKFARE;    PUBLIC WORKS;    POVERTY;    CONSUMPTION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8395
RP-ID  :  WPS8395

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Evidence on the effectiveness ofworkfare as an anti-poverty program in developing countriesis weak compared with the relatively well-established roleof public works during economic crisis as a social safetynet. This paper contributes to evidence building byexamining the impact of a large-scale workfare program inBangladesh, the Employment Generation Program for thePoorest. Taking advantage of the program'sdistinguishable feature of direct wage transfer to aperson's bank account, the paper uses accessibility tolocal banks as an instrumental variable to identify theprogram's impacts on rural social assistancebeneficiaries. Based on locality-by-time fixed effectsmodels over two rounds of locality panel data, the analysisfinds that the Employment Generation Program for the Pooresthas contributed to increasing overall household consumptionand reducing outstanding loans. In particular, expenditureson quality food and health care have significantlyincreased, which likely helps individuals continue to engagein income-generating activities in the labor market.However, the implementation costs and poor quality of publicassets built through work projects could potentiallyundermine the program's efficiency. Moreover, furtherevidence is required on the impacts of work experiencethrough workfare on subsequent labor market outcomes and thevalue of public assets, to assess the program'seffectiveness compared with administratively simpleralternative instruments such as unconditional cash transfers.