Cash transfer and female labor supply: evidence from Brazil’s rural area

Fulvia Fernanda Lima,Gisléia Benini Duarte

doi:10.1590/1806-9479.2021.217424

Fulvia Fernanda Lima, Gisléia Benini Duarte

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9479.2021.217424

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Abstract

Abstract This paper analyzed the relationship between Bolsa Família Program (BFP) and labor supply of women in rural areas from Brazil, using the Propensity Score Matching (with the nearest-neighbor, kernel, and IPW criteria), Ordinary Least Squares on the treatment (beneficiaries), and control (non-beneficiaries) groups with the robustness analysis proposed by Oster (2015). The results showed that the BFP has an opposite effect to the one pronounced in the critiques of the program, the beneficiaries did not have more or fewer work hours than the non-beneficiaries, this fact can be explained by the value of the benefit not being able to meet the expenses of the household. From these results, we can conclude that both tests reinforce the importance of continuing the investigation of the effects on female labor supply in the rural environment in the light of different guidelines.

Highlights

In the 1990s, cash transfer programs in Brazil became part of government actions and were soon consolidated in the early 2000s after the unification of the first sectorial programs
We present the results of the main question of this study, in other words, about whether participating in the Bolsa Família Program (BFP) affects the labor supply of Brazilian women living in rural areas
It is clear that before pairing we already expected that there would be a difference in the average between the control group and the treatment group since there was no draw to select the women covered by the policy

Summary

Introduction

In the 1990s, cash transfer programs in Brazil became part of government actions and were soon consolidated in the early 2000s after the unification of the first sectorial programs. The Bolsa Família Program was created by Provisional Measure No 132, and subsequently became law by the number 10,836, of January 9, 2004, and regulated by Decree No 5,209, of 2004 (Brasil, 2016). It is currently the main conditional cash transfer (CCT) program of the Federal Government. The Bolsa Família Program (BFP) aims to eradicate poverty through the conditional cash transfer policy (CCTP). This kind of policy consists of transferring income to families that meet conditionality requirements, such as the school attendance of their children (in the BFP)

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Conclusion