Are Cash Transfers Made to Women Spent Like Other Sources of Income?

Schady, Norbert ; Rosero, José

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ADULT FEMALES;    ADULT MALES;    AVERAGE FOOD SHARE;    CALORIC REQUIREMENTS;    CASH TRANSFER PROGRAMS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-4282
RP-ID  :  WPS4282

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

How cash transfers made to women areused has important implications for models of householdbehavior and for the design of social programs. In thispaper, the authors use the randomized introduction of anunconditional cash transfer to poor women in rural Ecuadorto analyze the effect of transfers on the food Engel curve.There are two main findings. First, the authors show thathouseholds randomly assigned to receive Bono de DesarrolloHumano (BDH) transfers have a significantly higher foodshare in expenditures than those that were randomly assignedto the control group. Second, they show that the rising foodshare among BDH beneficiaries is found among households thathave both adult males and females, but not among householdsthat only have adult females. Bargaining power between menand women is likely to be important in mixed-adulthouseholds, but not among female-only households, wherethere are no men to bargain with. Finally, the authors showthat within mixed-adult households, program effects are onlysignificant in households in which the initial bargainingcapacity of women was likely to be weak. This pattern ofresults is consistent with an increase in the bargainingpower of women in households that received BDH transfers.