scholarly journals Cycling to School: Increasing Secondary School Enrollment for Girls in India

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karthik Muralidharan ◽  
Nishith Prakash

We study the impact of an innovative program in the Indian state of Bihar that aimed to reduce the gender gap in secondary school enrollment by providing girls who continued to secondary school with a bicycle that would improve access to school. Using data from a large representative household survey, we employ a triple difference approach (using boys and the neighboring state of Jharkhand as comparison groups) and find that being in a cohort that was exposed to the Cycle program increased girls' age-appropriate enrollment in secondary school by 32 percent and reduced the corresponding gender gap by 40 percent. We also find an 18 percent increase in the number of girls who appear for the high-stakes secondary school certificate exam, and a 12 percent increase in the number of girls who pass it. Parametric and non-parametric decompositions of the triple-difference estimate as a function of distance to the nearest secondary school show that the increases in enrollment mostly took place in villages that were further away from a secondary school, suggesting that the mechanism of impact was the reduction in the time and safety cost of school attendance made possible by the bicycle. We also find that the Cycle program was much more cost effective at increasing girls' secondary school enrollment than comparable conditional cash transfer programs in South Asia. (JEL H42, I21, I28, J16, O15, O18)

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Edo ◽  
Mariana Marchionni ◽  
Santiago Garganta

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.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diether Beuermann ◽  
Andrea Ramos Bonilla ◽  
Marco Stampini

We explore whether the academic benefit from attending a preferred secondary school differs between beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of the Jamaican Conditional Cash Transfer Program, Programme of Advancement through Health and Education (PATH). The academic outcomes assessed include end of secondary and post-secondary high-stakes examinations independently administered by the Caribbean Examinations Council. Among girls, receiving PATH benefits before secondary school enrollment does not influence the academic gains from attending a more selective school. However, boys who received PATH benefits prior to secondary school enrollment benefit significantly less from subsequently attending a more selective school with respect to comparable peers who did not receive PATH benefits. These results suggest negative dynamic interactions between PATH and selective secondary schools among boys.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paloma Santana Moreira Pais ◽  
Felipe de Figueiredo Silva ◽  
Evandro Camargos Teixeira

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Corrales-Herrero ◽  
Martina Him Camaño ◽  
Belén Miranda-Escolar ◽  
Olga Ogando Canabal

PurposeThe purpose of this paper seeks to gauge the impact of the Red de Oportunidades programme on the school attendance of children from households that participate in the programme.Design/methodology/approachIn order to measure the impact of the programme, the authors apply propensity score matching, a quasi-experimental technique that allows us to find an appropriate control group to compare with the treatment group.FindingsResults show that the programme does not always manage to bring into line school attendance of children from families involved in the programme with that of children from families who are not. Nevertheless, differences are still evident in terms of age, gender and geographical area.Practical implicationsConditional cash transfer programmes should be designed carefully, taking into account a great variety of factors such as geographical characteristics, educational resources and infrastructure, not only to replicate programmes that have proved to be effective in other countries. In this sense, it seems that the impact of cash transfers on primary school attendance can be wholly attributed to the programme, implying that it is better to allocate more resources to groups in terms of age and gender where education is still not universal.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time the impact of conditional cash transfers on school attendance has been examined in a country that still displays major geographical differences in terms of poverty, namely, Panama. The Red de Oportunidades programme has barely been studied.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Layana Costa Alves ◽  
Mauro Niskier Sanchez ◽  
Thomas Hone ◽  
Luiz Felipe Pinto ◽  
Joilda Silva Nery ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Malaria causes 400 thousand deaths worldwide annually. In 2018, 25% (187,693) of the total malaria cases in the Americas were in Brazil, with nearly all (99%) Brazilian cases in the Amazon region. The Bolsa Família Programme (BFP) is a conditional cash transfer (CCT) programme launched in 2003 to reduce poverty and has led to improvements in health outcomes. CCT programmes may reduce the burden of malaria by alleviating poverty and by promoting access to healthcare, however this relationship is underexplored. This study investigated the association between BFP coverage and malaria incidence in Brazil. Methods A longitudinal panel study was conducted of 807 municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon between 2004 and 2015. Negative binomial regression models adjusted for demographic and socioeconomic covariates and time trends were employed with fixed effects specifications. Results A one percentage point increase in municipal BFP coverage was associated with a 0.3% decrease in the incidence of malaria (RR = 0.997; 95% CI = 0.994–0.998). The average municipal BFP coverage increased 24 percentage points over the period 2004–2015 corresponding to be a reduction of 7.2% in the malaria incidence. Conclusions Higher coverage of the BFP was associated with a reduction in the incidence of malaria. CCT programmes should be encouraged in endemic regions for malaria in order to mitigate the impact of disease and poverty itself in these settings.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document