Do conditional cash transfers create resilience against poverty? Long-run evidence from Jamaica

Abstract

Conditional Cash Transfer programs (CCT) have become the prominent component of social assistance programs in many developing countries. A major objective of CCT programs is breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty and building a population resilient to adverse shocks that may push a person into poverty. The literature to date has not provided conclusive evidence for the long-run impact of CCT programs on beneficiaries’ resilience against poverty. To fill this gap, I exploit the age-based eligibility thresholds and regional variation in the proportion of persons receiving benefits from the Jamaican CCT program to identify its long-run impact on resilience against poverty. I find that child beneficiaries of the program are up to 8.4 percentage points more resilient against poverty when they become adults than they would have been in the absence of the program. Furthermore, these benefits are only evident in females, and are realized after beneficiaries are in their early 20′s. Overall, this study provides further justification for the expansion of CCTs or similar programs targeting children living in less-developed countries.