Overview

Description

One of the most important innovations in anti-poverty policy in the last couple of decades has been the rolling out of Conditional Cash Transfer (CCTs) Programs (Fiszbein and Schady, 2009). A typical CCT will transfer cash to a poor household conditional on children attending school and health check-ups regularly. This transfer is most often awarded to mothers on the presumption that they are more likely to be responsible for their children’s human capital investments. While CCTs have often been touted as an effective means of empowering women by strengthening their intra-household bargaining power, a growing number studies have documented unintended effects, for instance, on marital outcomes and intimate partner violence (e.g. Bobonis, 2011 and Bobonis et al., 2013) or on the reinforcement of traditional gender roles (Molyneux and Thompson, 2011). These trade-offs can be difficult to navigate for program implementers.