nach oben

Demography

Erschienen in:

01.08.2013

Is Health of the Aging Improved by Conditional Cash Transfer Programs? Evidence From Mexico

verfasst von: Jere R. Behrman, Susan W. Parker

Erschienen in: Demography | Ausgabe 4/2013

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs link public transfers to human capital investment in the hopes of alleviating current poverty and reducing its intergenerational transmission. Whereas nearly all studies of their effects have focused on youth, CCT programs may also have an impact on aging adults by increasing household resources or inducing changes in allocations of time of household members, which may be of substantial interest, particularly given the rapid aging of most populations. This article contributes to this underresearched area by examining health and work impacts on the aging for the best-known and most influential of these programs, the Mexican PROGRESA/Oportunidades program. For a number of health indicators, the program appears to significantly improve health, with larger effects for recipients with a greater time receiving benefits from the program. Most of these health effects are concentrated on women.

Vorheriger Artikel Including the Smoking Epidemic in Internationally Coherent Mortality Projections

Nächster Artikel Multidimensional Life Table Estimation of the Total Fertility Rate and Its Components

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Nur mit Berechtigung zugänglich

The average age of the world population is projected to increase from 28.3 years in 1995 to 32.6 years in 2020 (United Nations 1996). Among the major world regions, LAC is projected to have the greatest increase in average age (24.4–31.0), followed by Asia (25.2–30.4), Europe and North America (35.2–39.0), and finally Africa (24.7–28.2) (Behrman et al. 2003).

PROGRESA is an acronym for the original name of the program (Programa de Educacíon, Salud y Alimentacíon; Program for Education, Health and Nutrition) introduced by the Zedillo government. When the Fox government came into power after the 2000 election, some aspects of the program were modified (e.g., coverage of grants at the high school level, and extension into more urban areas) and renamed “Oportunidades.”

These include a variety of approaches, such as exploiting the original experimental design to estimate enrollment effects (Schultz 2004) and transition matrices for entering, exiting, progressing, and repeating school grades (Behrman et al. 2005); using matching estimators for longer-run effects (Behrman et al. 2009, 2011); using sibling estimators to control for unobserved family background (Parker et al. 2009); and using structural models based on the baseline data and validated by the experiment to explore counterfactual policies (Attanasio et al. 2011; Todd and Wolpin 2006).

For example, Behrman and Hoddinott (2005), Gertler (2004), and Rivera et al. (2004) presented estimates of the impact on early childhood growth. For summaries and reviews of many of the studies undertaken of PROGRESA/Oportunidades, see Behrman and Skoufias (2006), Levy (2006), Levy and Rodriguez (2004), Parker et al. (2008), and Skoufias (2004).

In the longer run, aging household members also may benefit from increased income earned by younger (present or former) household members because of their enhanced human resources induced by the program. However, not enough time had passed for such effects to be observed in the data that we use for this article.

Most previous studies of PROGRESA/Oportunidades have used the experimental design and concentrated on the short-run program impacts before the experimental design ended. Diaz and Handa (2006) presented estimates informative for our study that are successful at replicating PROGRESA/Oportunidades short-term impacts on school and work, using nonexperimental methods (cross-sectional matching).

In 2006, a pension for the elderly was added to the program, providing a monthly payment to each adult aged 70 or older who is part of a PROGRESA/Oportunidades family, equal in 2006 to 250 pesos monthly (about 22 USD). The data that we use and analyze were collected before the introduction of this pension.

Rubalcava et al. (2009) suggested that providing transfers to women in the PROGRESA/Oportunidades program shifts the distribution of household expenditure toward investment in the future, but we are unaware of any evidence on how transfers to elderly females versus younger females may affect household spending.

The comparison T1998 versus T2000 is slightly different than the other two comparisons in that it is based on comparing two groups receiving the program, with one receiving benefits for a longer time than the other, whereas the other two comparisons are with respect to a comparison group that has never received benefits. Thus, smaller impacts in the T1998 versus T2000 comparison might be expected both because of a smaller differential in time receiving the program and because receiving the program may allow the T2000 group to “catch up” to the T1998 group.

Attrition is the result of both migration and mortality. Comparing T1998 versus T2000, we estimate the impact of the program on mortality for the population aged 50 and older at baseline and find that although the T1998 group has slightly lower mortality levels, these differences are not statistically significant. We cannot do the same for the C2003 sample because we do not have good information on who in the C2003 sample was in the household in 1997 and thus cannot construct measures of mortality and attrition for the C2003 sample.

The localities that were included in the sampling frame for C2003 were initially selected by matching on locality characteristics. This first matching procedure to determine the comparison group localities from which households were sampled is distinct from the finer matching that we perform to obtain our estimates, which uses both household- and individual-level data in selecting the matches.

In addition to women receiving the transfers, girls in school receive higher grants than boys at the postprimary school levels, and there is an important prenatal and postnatal health component.

Attanasio, O., Meghir, C., & Santiago, A. (2011). Education choices in Mexico: Using a structural model and a randomized experiment to evaluate Progresa. Review of Economic Studies, 79, 37–66.CrossRef

Behrman, J. R., Duryea, S., & Székely, M. (2003). Aging and economic opportunities: What can Latin America learn from the rest of the world? In O. Attanasio & M. Székely (Eds.), The family in flux: Household decision-making in Latin America (pp. 69–100). Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.

Behrman, J. R., & Hoddinott, J. (2005). Program evaluation with unobserved heterogeneity and selective implementation: The Mexican Progresa impact on child nutrition. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 67, 547–569.CrossRef

Behrman, J. R., Parker, S. W., & Todd, P. E. (2009). Medium-term impacts of the Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program on rural youth in Mexico. In S. Klasen & F. Nowak-Lehmann (Eds.), Poverty, inequality, and policy in Latin America (pp. 219–270). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Behrman, J. R., Parker, S. W., & Todd, P. E. (2011). Do conditional cash transfers for schooling generate lasting benefits? A five-year follow-up of Oportunidades participants. Journal of Human Resources, 46, 93–122.CrossRef

Behrman, J. R., Sengupta, P., & Todd, P. E. (2005). Progressing through PROGRESA: An impact assessment of a school subsidy experiment in rural Mexico. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 54, 237–276.CrossRef

Behrman, J. R., & Skoufias, E. (2006). Mitigating myths about policy effectiveness: Evaluation of Mexico’s antipoverty program. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 606, 244–275.CrossRef

Behrman, J. R., & Todd, P. E. (1999). Randomness in the experimental samples of Progresa. Unpublished manuscript, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.

Dehejia, R., & Wahba, S. (2002). Propensity score matching methods for nonexperimental causal studies. Review of Economics and Statistics, 84, 151–161.CrossRef

Diaz, J. J., & Handa, S. (2006). An assessment of propensity score matching as a nonexperimental impact estimator: Evidence from Mexico’s PROGRESA Program. Journal of Human Resources, 4, 319–345.

Fiszbein, A., & Schady, N. (2009). Conditional cash transfers: Reducing present and future poverty (World Bank Policy Research Report). Washington, DC: World Bank.

Gertler, P. J. (2004). Do conditional cash transfers improve child health? Evidence from PROGRESA’s control randomized experiment. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, 94, 336–341.CrossRef

Gertler, P. J., & Boyce, S. P. (2001). An experiment in incentive-based welfare: The impact of PROGESA on health in Mexico. Unpublished manuscript, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

Heckman, J., Ichimura, H., & Todd, P. E. (1998). Matching as an econometric evaluation estimator. Review of Economic Studies, 65, 261–294.CrossRef

Hoddinott, J., & Skoufias, E. (2004). The impact of PROGRESA on consumption. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 53, 37–61.CrossRef

Levy, S. (2006). Progress against poverty: Sustaining Mexico’s PROGRESA-Oportunidades program. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Levy, S., & Rodriguez, E. (2004). Economic crisis, political transitions, and poverty policy reform: Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades program (Policy Dialogue Series). Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank.

Parker, S. W., Rubalcava, L., & Teruel, G. (2008). Evaluating conditional schooling-health transfer programs. In T. P. Schultz & J. Strauss (Eds.), Handbook of development economics (Vol. 4, pp. 3963–4035). London, UK: Elsevier.

Parker, S. W., Todd, P. E., & Wolpin, K. I. (2009). Within-family treatment effect estimators: The impact of Oportunidades on schooling in Mexico. Unpublished manuscript.

Rivera, J. A., Sotres-Alvarez, D., Habicht, J. P., Shamah, T., & Villalpando, S. (2004). Impact of the Mexican program for education, health, and nutrition (Progresa) on rates of growth and anemia in infants and young children. Journal of the American Medical Association, 291, 2563–2570.CrossRef

Rosenbaum, P., & Rubin, D. (1983). The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika, 70, 41–55.CrossRef

Rubalcava, L., Teruel, G., & Thomas, D. (2009). Investments, time preferences, and public transfers paid to women. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 57, 507–538.CrossRef

Schultz, T. P. (2004). School subsidies for the poor: Evaluating a Mexican strategy for reducing poverty. Journal of Development Economics, 74, 199–250.CrossRef

Skoufias, E. (2004). PROGRESA and its impacts on the welfare of households in rural Mexico (IFPRI Research Monographs). Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Todd, P. E., & Smith, J. (2005). Does matching overcome LaLonde’s critique of non-experimental estimators. Journal of Econometrics, 125, 305–353.CrossRef

Todd, P. E., & Wolpin, K. (2006). Using a social experiment to validate a dynamic behavioral model of child schooling and fertility: Assessing the impact of a school subsidy program in Mexico. American Economic Review, 96, 1384–1417.CrossRef

United Nations. (1996). The sex and age distribution of the world populations: The 1996 revision. New York: United Nations.

Titel: Is Health of the Aging Improved by Conditional Cash Transfer Programs? Evidence From Mexico
verfasst von: Jere R. Behrman
Susan W. Parker
Publikationsdatum: 01.08.2013
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Demography / Ausgabe 4/2013
Print ISSN: 0070-3370
Elektronische ISSN: 1533-7790
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-013-0199-z

Springer Professional

Abstract

Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Zugang zu Ihrer Lizenz zu erhalten.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Weitere Artikel der Ausgabe 4/2013

Educational Homogamy and Gender-Specific Earnings: Sweden, 1990–2009

Erratum to: Multidimensional Life Table Estimation of the Total Fertility Rate and Its Components

Multidimensional Life Table Estimation of the Total Fertility Rate and Its Components

Remittances in the Republic of Georgia: Correlates, Economic Impact, and Social Capital Formation

Migrant Networks and International Migration: Testing Weak Ties

The Educational Gradient in Marriage: A Comparison of 25 European Countries