Social Protection Programs Research Articles

<p>Digital Financial Behavior of Rural Farmer Households During the Covid-19 Pandemic</p>

This study aims to analyze the behavior of the digital economy of rural farmers in using direct cash assistance from the government during the Covid-19 pandemic. Direct cash assistance is a social protection program from the government to maintain the ability to have purchasing power in meeting the needs of life. The subjects of this study were people who had livelihoods as farmers in various villages in Semen District, Gampengrejo District and Ngasem District, Donomulyo District, Sumbermanjing Wetan District, Wates District, and Binangun District, East Java Province, Indonesia. This type of research is explanatory and the data analysis method is carried out descriptively. The sampling method was carried out using a simple random sampling method on groups of farmer households in the village within the period of April-June 2021. Meanwhile, data collection is carried out by conducting in-depth interviews, observations, and distributing questionnaires. The number of samples that can be collected from data collection are 760 respondents. The results of the study provide results that the behavior of the digital economy of rural farmers is influenced by cost, privacy, and social factors. Direct cash assistance provided by the government to farmers encourages changes in farmers' behavior in conducting non-cash transactions. To encourage the digitization of non-cash transactions, it is necessary: the existence of digital literacy activities for farmers through the provision of IT supporting facilities and infrastructure, assistance in the use of IT in financial transactions, and, the existence of regulations that can facilitate farmers' access to digital financial transaction activities.

Apakah Program Keluarga Harapan Mampu Mengurangi Pekerja Anak di Masa Pandemi COVID-19?

The COVID-19 pandemic can be an economic shock for low-income households. Several studies have shown that child labor is a strategy used by households to cope with economic shocks. This shock will exacerbate the phenomenon of child labor. Social protection is a form of mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic which is considered able to reduce the number of child labor. Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) is one of the social protection programs in Indonesia. This study investigates the impact of Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) on the phenomenon of child labor during the COVID-19 pandemic. To overcome the problem of self-selection, this study applies the variable of interest as an endogenous variable. By using the recursive bivariate probit method, this study concludes that PKH has no impact on reducing the likelihood of a child becoming child labor during the COVID-19 pandemic. To enrich the research, we also investigated the influence of PKH on the phenomenon of child labor in the period before the COVID-19 pandemic and found that PKH had an impact on reducing the likelihood of a child becoming child labor in the period before the COVID-19 pandemic. Several factors that influence the phenomenon of child labor, such as the characteristics of children, the characteristics of the head of the household, household characteristics, and environmental characteristics, have been shown to influence a child's tendency to become child labor, both in both periods (before the pandemic or during the COVID-19 pandemic) and in only one period.

COVID-19 Disruptions of Food Systems and Nutrition Services in Ethiopia: Evidence of the Impacts and Policy Responses.

Since its first case of COVID-19 on March 13, 2020, Ethiopia has exerted efforts to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) without imposing a nationwide lockdown. Globally, COVID-19 related disruptions and mitigation measures have impacted livelihoods and food systems, nutrition, as well as access and use of health services. To develop a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food systems, health services, and maternal and child nutrition and to synthesize lessons from policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia. We conducted a review of literature and 8 key informant interviews across government agencies, donors, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to map the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food and health systems in Ethiopia. We summarized policy responses and identified recommendations for future actions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and other future emergencies. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were felt across the food system and include limited agriculture inputs due to travel restrictions and closed borders restricting trade, reduced in-person support by agriculture extension workers, income losses, increases in food prices, and the reduction in food security and dietary diversity. Maternal and child health services were disrupted due to fear of contacting COVID-19, diversion of resources, and lack of personal protective equipment. Disruptions eased over time due to the expansion of social protection through the Productive Safety Net Program, and the increased outreach and home service provision by the health extension workers. Ethiopia experienced disruptions to food systems and maternal and child nutrition services due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, by expanding existing social protection programs and public health infrastructure and leveraging partnerships with non-state actors, the extent of the impact of the pandemic was largely minimized. Nevertheless, vulnerabilities and gaps remain and there is a need for a long-term strategy that considers the potential for future pandemics and other shocks.

Do short-term unconditional cash transfers change behaviour and preferences? evidence from Indonesia

ABSTRACT Short-term unconditional cash transfers are used as a temporary mitigation strategy during adverse economic shocks. They can however, cause adverse unintended impacts on behaviour and preferences. We estimate the effect of receiving short-term unconditional cash transfers on behaviour, risk aversion, and intertemporal choice in Indonesia. The country first introduced the program in 2005 and continues to use it whenever adverse economic shocks occur. With 15.5 million beneficiary households, the program remains one of the largest in the world. We use an individual-level longitudinal dataset spanning 1997 – 2014. To identify a causal relationship, we combine coarsened exact matching with difference-in-differences. We find no evidence that the short-term unconditional cash transfer affected beneficiaries’ behaviour or preferences. Together with evidence of its positive impact in mitigating the impact of adverse economic shocks, our findings show that short-term unconditional cash transfers should continue to be part of the government’s portfolio of social protection programs.

Reducing Delay in Payments in Welfare Programs: Experimental Evidence from an Information Dissemination Intervention

Abstract This paper assesses the impact of an information dissemination intervention on the local-level implementation of the rural public works program in India. One key feature of the intervention is to provide information to workers once their wages get credited into their accounts. Using administrative and survey data, its impact on delays in wage payments and days of work along with the awareness levels of the entitlements is evaluated. The findings indicate a substantial reduction in payment delays and in trips made for wage withdrawal, in addition to improvements in awareness. The decrease in the payment delays in the treated villages persists even beyond the intervention period. While a limited impact on work days is observed during the intervention, a significant increase in the post-intervention period is found. The findings substantiated through qualitative evidence provide a platform for an innovative and cost-effective intervention to improve the implementation of social protection programs.

Revisiting Poverty Trends and the Role of Social Protection Systems in Africa during the COVID-19 Pandemic

AbstractQuantifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty in Africa has been as difficult as predicting the path of the pandemic, mainly due to data limitations. The advent of new data sources, including national accounts and phone survey data, provides an opportunity for a thorough reassessment of the impact of the pandemic and the subsequent expansion of social protection systems on the evolution of poverty in Africa. In this paper, we combine per capita GDP growth from national accounts with data from High-Frequency Phone Surveys for several countries to estimate the net impact of the pandemic on poverty. We find that the pandemic has increased poverty in Africa by 1.5 to 1.7 percentage points in 2020, relatively smaller than early estimates and projections. We also find that countries affected by Fragility, Conflict and Violence experienced the greatest increases in poverty, about 2.1 percentage points in 2020. Furthermore, we assess and synthesize empirical evidence on the role that social protection systems played in mitigating the adverse impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Africa. We review social protection responses in various African countries, mainly focusing on the impact of these programs and effectiveness of targeting systems. Although the evidence base on the protective role of social protection programs during the pandemic remains scarce, we highlight important findings on the impacts of these programs while also uncovering some vulnerabilities in social protection programming in Africa. We finally draw important lessons related to the delivery, targeting and impact of various social protection programs launched in Africa in response to the pandemic.

Poverty, Inequality and Social Protection Programs in Africa: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Poverty, Inequality and Social Protection Programs in Africa: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Quantifying Vulnerability to Poverty in the Drought-prone Lowlands of Ethiopia

AbstractA forward-looking measure of ‘vulnerability to poverty’ is estimated and a concerted effort is made to understand the sources of vulnerability in the drought-prone lowlands of Ethiopia. Using the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey and the Welfare Monitoring Survey of 2015–16, which include additional zones in the Afar and Somali regions increasing the representativeness of the survey in pastoral areas, the analysis reveals that vulnerability is remarkably higher in the drought-prone lowlands than in the other ecological zones, even though differences in poverty rates are modest. The analysis also reveals important distinctions in the sources of vulnerability. In the drought-prone lowlands, (i) the prevalence of both poverty-induced and risk-induced vulnerability is the highest among all the ecological zones and (ii) the importance of vulnerability due to aggregate shocks, such as droughts, relative to vulnerability due to idiosyncratic shocks is higher than in the other ecological zones. These findings attest to the unique nature of the drought-prone lowlands in comparison to the other agroecological zones of Ethiopia and the need for adaptive social protection programmes targeting not only the chronically poor but also the vulnerable.

Self-employment, illness, and the social security system: a qualitative study of the experiences of solo self-employed workers in Ontario, Canada

BackgroundToday’s labor market has changed over time, shifting from mostly full-time, secured, and standard employment relationships to mostly entrepreneurial and precarious working arrangements. Thus, self-employment (SE) has been growing rapidly in recent decades due to globalization, automation, technological advances, and the recent rise of the ‘gig’ economy, among other factors. Accordingly, more than 60% of workers worldwide are non-standard and precarious. This precarity profoundly impacts workers’ health and well-being, undermining the comprehensiveness of social security systems. This study aims to examine the experiences of self-employed (SE’d) workers on how they are protected with available social security systems following illness, injury, and income reduction or loss.MethodsDrawing on in-depth interviews with 24 solo SE’d people in Ontario (January – July 2021), thematic analysis was conducted based on participants’ narratives of experiences with available security systems following illness or injury. The dataset was analyzed using NVIVO qualitative software to elicit narratives and themes.FindingsThree major themes emerged through the narrative analysis: (i) policy-practice (mis)matching, (ii) compromise for a decent life, and (iii) equity in work and benefits.ConclusionsMeagre government-provided formal supports may adversely impact the health and wellbeing of self-employed workers. This study points to ways that statutory social protection programs should be decoupled from benefits provided by employers. Instead, government can introduce a comprehensive program that may compensate or protect low-income individuals irrespective of employment status.

HIV-sensitive social protection: an assessment of east and southern Africa’s social protection policies and programmes

Despite notable political and financial commitment to fight the HIV epidemic, east and southern Africa (ESA) remains the world regions most affected. Given increasing calls for the implementation of HIV-sensitive social protection programmes to address the multiple individual, community and societal factors that heighten the risk of HIV infection, this article explores the extent to which social protection mechanisms in the region are HIV sensitive. The article is based on a two-phase project where the first phase entailed a desktop review of national social protection policies and programmes. In the second phase, multisectoral stakeholder consultations conducted were 15 fast-track countries in the region. The key findings suggest that social protection policies and social assistance programmes in ESA do not specifically target HIV issues or people living with, at risk of, or affected by HIV. Rather, and in line with the countries’ constitutional provisions, the programmes tend to be inclusive of the vulnerabilities of various populations including people living with HIV. To this end, the programmes can be seen as generally sufficient to encompass HIV-related issues and the needs of people infected and affected by the epidemic. However, a recurring argument from many stakeholders is that, to the extent that people living with HIV are often reluctant to either disclose their status and/or access social protection services, it is critical for social protection policies and programmes to be explicitly HIV sensitive. The article thus concludes by making recommendations in this regard as well as by making a class for multisectoral partners to work collaboratively to ensure that social protection policies and programmes are transformative.

Out- Of- Pocket health expenditure and household consumption patterns in Benin: Is there a crowding out effect?

Health shocks are common and have serious consequences for households in developing countries where health insurance is lacking. In this study, we examine whether out-of-pocket health expenditures crowd out household consumption of non-healthcare necessities, such as education items in Benin using a sample of 14,952 households from the global vulnerability and food security analysis survey. We estimated a system of conditional Engel curves with three stage least squared (3SLS) and seemingly unrelated regression (SURE) for seven categories of goods using the Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (QUAIDS) in the form of budget shares corresponding to proportions of total non-health expenditure. Findings show that out of pocket health expenditure leads households to spend more on health care that in fine crowd out expenditure in other necessity goods such as education item. These findings highlight the need for social protection programs to mitigate the impact of health shocks on vulnerable households in Benin.

Social protection schemes in rural Rwanda: A panacea for household energy burdens?

The role of social protection programs in low-income countries is increasingly becoming a subject of interest on the development agenda in the public discourse. The literature reveals a diversity of findings about the role of social protection on household development outcomes. There is little documentation regarding how social protection schemes affect household energy burdens in rural areas, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rwanda is one of the African countries that have taken deliberate steps to institutionalize the provision of social protection schemes to its citizenry. Therefore, this paper examined how accessibility to different social protection schemes affected household energy burdens in rural Rwanda using nationally representative household-level microdata (EICV5). Results from the Lewbel Instrumental Variable Estimator, nearest neighbor matching, and Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment showed that Vision 2020 Umurenge and Girinka social protection schemes significantly negatively affected household energy cost burdens. These study findings suggest that social protection schemes may require other efforts or policy instruments that might encourage use of modern energy services to address energy affordability barriers in rural areas.

Government social protection programme spending and household welfare in Lesotho

AbstractLesotho has notably high levels of poverty and inequality despite a high level of government spending on social protection programmes. We assess the performance of this spending in reducing consumption poverty and inequality, applying benefit incidence and microsimulation methods to 2017/2018 household survey data. We investigate the distributional effects of actual spending as well as those of a hypothetical alternative in which the spending is targeted through a proxy means test (PMT) formula used by the government for some programmes. We find that government spending on social protection programmes in Lesotho substantially reduces poverty and inequality. For most programmes, the hypothetical alternative of targeting spending to poorer households through the government's PMT formula would have no better distributional effects than current programme spending. The exception is postsecondary education bursaries, which are costly and regressive. Retaining bursaries only for poorer students, and reallocating the outlay this saves to a transfer targeted to poorer households through the government's PMT formula, could reduce poverty and inequality significantly.

Domestic Burdens Amid Covid-19 and Women’s Mental Health in Middle-Income Africa

This article analyzes two longitudinal datasets (October – December 2020; April 2021) of 1,000 and 900 women in Kenya and Nigeria, respectively, alongside in-depth qualitative interviews with women at risk of changes to time use, to study two pandemic issues: women’s substitution of paid for unpaid work and how these shifts compromise their mental health. Women devote more time to domestic care (30–38 percent), less time to employment (29–46 percent), and become unemployed (12–17 percent). A rise in domestic work is correlated with depressive (Nigeria) and anxiety symptoms (Kenya and Nigeria). Women with greater agency (Kenya) and fewer children (Nigeria) are less likely to report a domestic burden or loss in paid activities. Social protection programs may fill the void of assistance traditionally provided by informal networks in the short term, while campaigns shifting norms around household work may preserve women’s economic participation in the long term. HIGHLIGHTS Women in Kenya and Nigeria reported increases in domestic labor amid the pandemic. Women’s agency is negatively associated with the domestic burden and a reduction in paid activities in Kenya. Women in households with two or more children face greater domestic burdens and losses in paid activities in Nigeria. Increases in domestic work render women more likely to be anxious (Kenya and Nigeria) and depressed (Nigeria).

Nonlinear effects of public debt on economic growth in Nigeria.

The COVID-19 pandemic induced governments all over the world to momentarily accumulatehigher levels of public debt in order to invest in deficit spending and social protection programs to tackle the anticipated economic slump. The Nigerian government has borrowed heavily from domestic and foreign sources in order to resolve thegrowing budget deficits and return the economy to a sustainable growth trajectory. Previous studies frequently made the incorrect assumption that the relationship between public debt and growth is linear and symmetric, leading to empirical resultsthat is frequently disputed and imprecise. This study's main objective is to examine the asymmetric impact of public debt on economic growth in Nigeria from 1980 to 2020 using the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag method. Empirical evidence indicated that external debt have a significant positive and symmetric impact on economic growth in the long and short run, while debt service payment supporting the debt overhang hypothesis activated a symmetric effect that stifle growth. Domestic debt retarded growth asymmetrically in the short term and linearly over the long term. Foreign reserve holding, on the other hand, had an asymmetric long-run influence and a symmetric short-run impact on growth motivation. To mitigate the negative effects of unsustainable public debt, the study advocated for fiscal reforms that effectively reduce deficit financing to keep the level of government debt low and be able to respond robustly to an economic shock, improve domestic revenue generation and infrastructure spending, and strengthen governance practices and institutions.

Loss, Recovery and the Long Road Ahead: Tracking India's Informal Workers Through the Pandemic.

Drawing on results from a panel of 2778 workers interviewed during and after the 68-day hard lockdown imposed in India, the following study examines the livelihood impact of the pandemic and the extent of subsequent recovery or lack thereof. Focussing specifically on workers located in the informal economy, the study is a useful addition to the burgeoning body of work on the economic impacts of Covid-19 by providing an insight into the employment and earnings recovery of those located at the margins. These findings are spliced across socio-economic groups to showcase the differential impact of the pandemic on different demographics within the informal sector. Our results show that six months after the hard lockdown, one out five persons were still out of work. Conditioned on being employed prior to the lockdown and having lost work during the lockdown, we find that urban respondents, women, workers above 60 and graduates were significantly less likely to recover from the shock. A similar exercise carried out for women workers showed that middle aged women, never married women and women who were not-literate or educated up until primary and middle school were significantly more likely to recover from job loss. Older women, those located in urban areas and Muslim women were on the other hand significantly less likely to recover from the job loss. Earnings on the whole were half of what they used to be prior to the pandemic. Some better off workers shifted to more precarious types of employment. Given the fall in earnings, poorer worker households were forced to borrow and the amount of loan taken was multiple times their average monthly income. In the context of loss in employment and reverse migration, the survey results show a substantial unmet demand for work under the MGNREGA programme even after the lockdown was lifted. We conclude that despite a partial recovery in the subsequent period, the pandemic-induced lockdown has undermined the material conditions for subsistence for a large segment within the informal economy. Moreover, any attempts made to re-imagine what a social protection programme for the informal economy should look like must take into account the segments most susceptible to an economic shock on their livelihoods.

Overcoming the threat of poverty and social welfare amid the COVID-19 pandemic through sustainable funding sources

The COVID-19 outbreak is believed to have slowed economic acceleration in several countries, including Indonesia. Dramatic economic changes affect the country's performance in overcoming poverty and unemployment. This article aims to analyze the social and economic impact of the pandemic. It can be seen that the government, as the holder of the mandate of power, still and will continue to rely on social protection programs in dealing with the social and economic impacts that are currently being faced. The government can expand social security and assistance programs by strengthening collaboration between local authorities and non-state institutions. In addition to social protection, Indonesia, known as a country with a Muslim majority, has a religious instrument called zakat, which is believed to overcome the spike in poverty. Moreover, zakat is also considered a potential instrument to support some countries in achieving SDG goals as long as they are appropriately managed.

Improving Oral Hygiene Maintenance Through Teacher Empowerment to Reduce the Debris Index of Children with Disabilities

The prevalence of disability continues to increase. In 2003 there were 0.9% of all children in Indonesia with disabilities, in 2006 there were 1.38% of all children in Indonesia with disabilities and the peak in 2012 was 2.45% of all children in Indonesia. Children with disabilities are vulnerable and prone to exposure to diseases and threats. According to the 2011 Social Protection Programme (PPLS), there were 32,990 children with disabilities from poor families. Disability is defined as the physical inability of the body to perform normal bodily functions. Teacher empowerment is very important because through teacher empowerment, teachers will gain new knowledge, new ideas in achieving the learning process. Through teacher empowerment activities on the importance of maintaining oral hygiene in students with disabilities will motivate teachers to further increase the importance of maintaining oral hygiene in students with disabilities. This study is to analyse the effect of improving oral hygiene maintenance through teacher empowerment on reducing the debris index of children with disabilities. The type of research used is Analytical Quasi Experiment. The targets in the study were all SLB D/YPAC teachers. Data collection methods using questionnaires and observation. Data analysis technique using chi square statistical test. The results of the study showed that there was an effect of knowledge and attitude of maintaining oral hygiene through teacher empowerment on reducing the debris index of children in SLB-D YPAC Surabaya.

Enhancing the resilience and well-being of rural poor to climate risks: are the economic functions of social protection enough?

As climate change accelerates, adaptive social protection programmes are becoming increasingly more popular than conventional social assistance programmes, since they are seen to enhance people's resilience and well-being outcomes. Despite this upsurge, little is known about the impacts of adaptive programmes on resilience and well-being outcomes as compared to conventional programmes. This paper examines the economic functions that both types of social protection programmes offer through empirical studies in two climate-vulnerable zones in Bangladesh. By operationalising a simplified analytical framework to comprehend subjective resilience, the qualitative data reveal that the adaptive programme is more effective in enhancing beneficiaries' perceived resilience to climate risks. Regrettably, neither programme is found to contribute much significantly in terms of enabling beneficiaries to achieve the desired well-being outcomes that one might expect to see. The paper offers rich insights into the design components of the programmes, affording an on-the-ground understanding of their implications for resilience and well-being.

Is government spending in the education and health sector necessary for human capital development?

This study intends to examine the impact of current health expenditure, domestic government health expenditure, government education expenditure, social protection, population growth, and foreign direct investment (FDI) on human capital formation in the context of Pakistan. This study utilized skill and health to measure human capital. The study utilized annual data for the period of 1990–2020 and data has been extracted from World Development Indicators (WDI) and World Bank. The study utilized auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound test to examine long-run co-integration among defined variables. Furthermore, the study employed ARDL Model to obtain long-run and short-run empirical estimates for modeled variables. The results of this study indicated that current health expenditure (CHE), domestic government health expenditure (DGHE), government education expenditures (GEE), foreign direct expenditure (FDI), and social protection program (SP) have a positive and significant association with human capital in term of primary, secondary, and tertiary education attainment and life expectancy at birth. Moreover, domestic government spending on health and education, and social protection program significantly decreases child mortality in Pakistan. Furthermore, this study found that population growth has a negative and significant association with primary attainment. The findings of this study suggest that the Government of Pakistan should allocate more of its budget for health, education, and social protection programs to uplift its human capital.