The Impact of Bolsa Família on Women’s Decision-Making Power

Abstract

In many conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes worldwideincluding Brazil's Bolsa Família-cash transfers are preferentially made to women. This feature was motivated by earlier research showing that greater control over resources among women is linked to an increase in their decision-making power and improved outcomes among children (e.g. Quisumbing, 2003). However, there is little quantitative evidence demonstrating that CCT programmes with female beneficiaries trigger increases in women's decision-making power.Previous research does not find consensus on the issue, and, further, it is largely drawn from CCTs in rural Mexico, giving little insight into how impacts might differ in different contexts. It is also important to note that transferring cash to women does not guarantee that women's control over resources will increase. For example, women's spouses or other household members could take control over the cash once it is transferred. Therefore, empirical evidence is required to assess whether CCTs can be effective in increasing women's decision-making power, and under what circumstances. Given the growing popularity of CCTs and widespread interest in increasing women's empowerment worldwide, the question has become increasingly compelling.Brazil is a particularly interesting place to study the potential impacts of a CCT on women's decision-making power. Brazil has prioritised women's empowerment in its national policy. And Bolsa Família has more beneficiaries than any other CCT in the world, so any impacts found would suggest empowerment among a large population of women. Thus Bolsa Família provides a unique opportunity to assess the impacts of CCTs on women's decisionmaking in a large, diverse setting covering both rural and urban areas and where women's empowerment is a key goal.In a recent paper (de Brauw et al., 2012), we estimate the impacts of transfers associated with Bolsa Família on several measures of women's decision-making power. To do so, we use a rich longitudinal dataset of Bolsa Família beneficiary and non-beneficiary households collected in 2005 and 2009. Outcomes are measured using a series of questions asked of the main female respondent regarding who in the household generally made decisions about a range of issues.We estimate impacts of Bolsa Família on these outcomes solely among households headed by a male and female partnership. Since benefits from Bolsa Família were not randomly assigned, we use propensity score weighting (Hirano, Imbens and Ridder, 2003) to construct a statistically balanced comparison group of non-beneficiaries. Propensity scores are constructed using extensive information on socio-economic characteristics collected at baseline, combined with municipal characteristics measured around the time of baseline.We find that Bolsa Família increases women's decision-making power along several dimensions, but with heterogeneity in impacts. A key finding is that participation in Bolsa Família significantly increases the share of women who report exclusive control over co...

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