Reducing Poverty Intensity: What Alternative Poverty Measures Reveal about the Impact of Brazil's Bolsa Família

2014 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 143-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Bither-Terry
Keyword(s):  
Substantial Reduction ◽  
Order Reduction ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Continuous Variable ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Poverty Measure ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
The Impact

AbstractBrazil's conditional cash transfer program Bolsa Família (Family Allowance) has gained a worldwide reputation as an effective antipoverty program. However, studies applying the dominant headcount poverty measure, which counts the percentage of households falling below a given poverty line, only credit the program with a first-order reduction in poverty (and extreme poverty) of 0.15 to 1.88 percentage points. This raises the puzzle of how such a modest impact could lead to Bolsa Família's political popularity. This article argues that Bolsa Família does dramatically reduce poverty, but measuring this impact requires thinking of poverty as how far a household is from meeting its basic human needs; choosing a continuous variable; and using income gap, intensity, and ordinal measures that reflect this conceptualization. The more substantial reduction of poverty intensity helps explain the program's reputation.

Income Transfer Policies and Nutritional Condition of Children: An Evaluation of “Bolsa Família”

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mônica Viegas Andrade ◽  
Flávia Chein ◽  
Rafael Perez Ribas ◽  
Jaume Puig-Junoy
Keyword(s):  
Nutritional Status ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Evaluation Research ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Baseline Survey ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact

This paper investigates the impact of the Bolsa Familia program, a conditional cash transfer program focused on Brazilian poor families, on children‘s nutritional status in a context of low monitoring of conditionalities. The analysis is carried out using data from a baseline survey conducted in 2005, the “Bolsa Família” Impact Evaluation Research. The evaluation is made using the Propensity Score Matchingtechnique. Besides considering observational differences between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of Bolsa Família Program, our empirical strategy also addresses some concerns about informational issues in order to take into account potential endogeneity of the decision to participate in the Program. Our final results show a positive effect of Bolsa Família Program on children nutritional status only whencontrolling for the informational bias and for those children fulfilling educational requirements; however, this positive impact on nutritional status is restricted to BMIfor-age but does not affect height-for-age.

The influence of Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer program on child labor in Brazil

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paloma Santana Moreira Pais ◽  
Felipe de Figueiredo Silva ◽  
Evandro Camargos Teixeira
Keyword(s):  
Child Labor ◽  
School Attendance ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Sample Survey ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Brazilian Government ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The Brazilian Government created the Bolsa Familia program to combat poverty and the insertion of so many children into the labor market. This program is an income transfer program subject to certain conditions such as a minimum school attendance for children under 17 years of age. In 2006, almost half of the people with an income per capita of R$300.00 (US$139.53) per month declared that they received this benefit. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of Bolsa Familia on child labor in Brazil in 2006. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a propensity score matching model with data from the National Household Sample Survey PESQUISA NACIONAL POR AMOSTRA DE DOMICÍLIOS (PNAD), for 2006. Findings Results indicate that the program increased the number of hours of child labor in Brazil. However, this outcome might be explained by the fact that those families who received Bolsa Familia were also those with higher socioeconomic vulnerability. Thus, they need to guarantee their survival with the income generated via child labor. Social implications The Brazilian Government needs to invest not only in monetary transfer policies but also in the improvement of the job market to create opportunities for the social development of children. Originality/value The contribution of the paper is the investigation into the effect of the Bolsa Familia program on the average time allocated to child labor; the authors find that this time allocation could be reduced by requiring a compulsory school attendance.

scholarly journals Evaluating the impact of the Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer program on premature cardiovascular and all-cause mortality using the 100 million Brazilian cohort: a natural experiment study protocol

BMJ Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. e039658
Author(s):  
Julia M Pescarini ◽  
Peter Craig ◽  
Mirjam Allik ◽  
Leila Amorim ◽  
Sanni Ali ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Survival Models ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Transfer Scheme ◽  
All Cause Mortality ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Brazilian Cohort

IntroductionBrazil’s Bolsa Familia Program (BFP) is the world’s largest conditional cash transfer scheme. We shall use a large cohort of applicants for different social programmes to evaluate the effect of BFP receipt on premature all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.Methods and analysisWe will identify BFP recipients and non-recipients among new applicants from 2004 to 2015 in the 100 Million Brazilian Cohort, a database of 114 million individuals containing sociodemographic and mortality information of applicants to any Brazilian social programme. For individuals applying from 2011, when we have better recorded income data, we shall compare premature (age 30–69) cardiovascular and all-cause mortality among BFP recipients and non-recipients using regression discontinuity design (RDD) with household monthly per capita income as the forcing variable. Effects will be estimated using survival models accounting for individuals follow-up. To test the sensitivity of our findings, we will estimate models with different bandwidths, include potential confounders as covariates in the survival models, and restrict our data to locations with the most reliable data. In addition, we will estimate the effect of BFP on studied outcomes using propensity score risk-set matching, separately for individuals that applied ≤2010 and >2011, allowing comparability with RDD. Analyses will be stratified by geographical region, gender, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic position. We will investigate differential impacts of BFP and the presence of effect modification for a combination of characteristics, including gender and race/ethnicity.Ethics and disseminationThe study was approved by the ethics committees of Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and the University of Glasgow College of Medicine and Veterinary Life Sciences. The deidentified dataset will be provided to researchers, and data analysis will be performed in a safe computational environment without internet access. Study findings will be published in high quality peer-reviewed research articles. The published results will be disseminated in the social media and to policy-makers.

scholarly journals Income transfer policies and the impacts on the immunization of children: the Bolsa Família Program

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 1347-1358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mônica Viegas Andrade ◽  
Flávia Chein ◽  
Laetícia Rodrigues de Souza ◽  
Jaume Puig-Junoy
Keyword(s):  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Immunization Schedule ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Income Transfer ◽  
Its Regions ◽  
Matching Technique ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer Program ◽  
The Impact

This paper investigates the impact of the Bolsa Família Program on the immunization of children from 0 to 6 years of age in Brazil and its regions. The Bolsa Família program is a conditional cash transfer program. One of its conditionalities is the compliance of children with the immunization schedule ordered by the Ministry of Health. The evaluation was performed using the Propensity Score Matching technique. We used data from a survey conducted in 2005 evaluating the program - Pesquisa de Avaliação de Impacto do Programa Bolsa Família. The main findings suggest that the Bolsa Família Program does not affect the immunization status of children.

Anti-Poverty Transfers and Poverty Reduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Barrientos
Keyword(s):  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
Policy Initiatives ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Bolsa Familia ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer Program

This chapter examines the role that public policy initiatives—specifically anti-poverty transfers—have played in the reduction of poverty and inequality in Brazil. A number of anti-poverty initiatives are considered in turn, and not just the widely known Bolsa Familia conditional cash transfer program. The analysis establishes that such transfers—including conditional cash transfers—have proved surprisingly effective, even helping to tackle long-standing income inequality. It is recognized that explicit anti-poverty initiatives were not the only drivers of the reduced incidence of poverty and inequality: factors such as growth and improved access to labor markets also played a role. However, progress is now threatened by the recent economic and political crisis.

scholarly journals Compulsory education laws or incentives from CCT programs? Explaining the rise in secondary school attendance rate in Argentina

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Edo ◽  
Mariana Marchionni ◽  
Santiago Garganta
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Latin American ◽  
School Attendance ◽  
Compulsory Education ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Transfer Program ◽  
National Education ◽  
Upper Secondary Education ◽  
The Impact

Argentina has traditionally stood out in terms of educational outcomes among its Latin American counterparts. Schooling of older children, however, still shows room for improvement especially among the more vulnerable. Fortunately, during the last years a sizeable improvement in attendance rates for children aged 15 through 17 took place. This could be related to the 2006 National Education Law that made upper-secondary education compulsory. In this paper, instead, we claim that the Asignación Universal por Hijo (Universal Child Allowance, AUH) -a massive conditional cash transfer program implemented in 2009 in Argentina- may be mostly responsible for this improvement. Using a difference-in-difference strategy we estimate that the program accounts for a 3.9 percentage point increase in the probability of attending secondary school among eligible children aged 15 through 17. The impact seems to be led by boys and is more relevant for children living in larger families where the head of household has a lower educational level.

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