Social Protection in a Crisis: Argentina’s Plan Jefes y Jefas

Abstract

The article assesses the impact of Argentina's main social policy response to the severe economic crisis of 2002. The program was intended to provide direct income support for families with dependents and whose head had become unemployed because of the crisis. Counterfactual comparisons are based on a matched subset of applicants not yet receiving program assistance. Panel data spanning the crisis are also used. The program reduced aggregate unemployment, though it attracted as many people into the workforce from inactivity as it did people who otherwise would have been unemployed. Although there was substantial leakage to formally ineligible families and incomplete coverage of those who were eligible, the program did partially compensate many losers from the crisis and reduced extreme poverty. 1. In 2002 the government of Argentina spent about US$500 million on Jefes, about a quarter of it financed through a World Bank loan. For 2003 the estimate is US$600 million, of which the bank loan will probably cover about half. The loan and counterpart funds cover mainly the payments to beneficiaries. Most costs for supplies and equipment for the workfare projects are covered by the local governments or nongovernmental organizations sponsoring the projects.

Evaluating the Health Effects of Micro Health Insurance Placement: Evidence from Bangladesh

“…Available empirical literature on this method falls mainly into two groups; one has compared program and comparison groups where the program was in the pipeline (Chase, 2002;Galasso and Ravallion, 2004), the other has compared program and comparison groups where the program has not been placed at the time of survey (Amin et al, 1996;Hadi, 2002). The model can be written as follows…”

Employment guarantee or minimum income? Workfare and welfare in developing countries

“…In Argentina, the Jefes programme was less well targeted than its Trabajar predecessor, but even here 40 percent of participants came from the poorest income quintile and 90 percent came from the poorest three quintiles. Galasso and Ravallion (2004) found that the Jefes programme was better targeted than other social programmes in Argentina. The unemployment rate was reduced by approximately 2.5 percentage points (but the effect on poverty was larger, as the participation rate rose by about the same amount, as women with dependents who had not been in the labour force joined the programme).…”

“…The new programme provided cash to unemployed household heads with dependent children or disabled adults. Participants were supposed to work for 20 hours per week on socially useful projects (Galasso and Ravallion, 2004). Botswana introduced a cash-for-work programme in 1992-93, providing 7 million person-days of employment (in a country with a tiny population) (Subbarao, 2001).…”

“…After public debate, the programme wage was actually reduced to improve pro-poor targeting (Subbarao, 2001: 8). The subsequent Jefes programme paid an aggregate 84 percent to 54 percent when we added '… even if it means that people like you have to pay higher taxes '. wages equivalent to about one half of mean household income per capita (Galasso and Ravallion, 2004). In South Korea, the programme wage was set at slightly below the market wage for unskilled labour; when market wages fell, the programme wage was reduced also (Subbarao, 2001: 9).…”

Argentina: Impacts of the child allowance programme on the labour-market behaviour of adults

“…At the same time, expanding the survey to the whole country might itself lead to some errors. Nonetheless, some authors such as Galasso and Ravallion (2004) have employed the same source of information to assess the Unemployed Heads of Household Plan, also in a context of beneficiary number underestimation.…”