Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Gee, K.A. (2010). Reducing child labour through conditional cash transfers: Evidence from Nicaragua's Red de Protección Social. Development Policy Review, 28(6), 711-732.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of a conditional cash transfer program, Red de Protección Social (RPS), in Nicaragua on child labor outcomes for children who are working.
- The study was an expansion of an earlier randomized controlled trial (RCT). The author used survey data from the RCT taken before the program started (2000) and two years after (2002) to examine the probability and duration of child work.
- The study found that the receipt of the cash transfer significantly reduced the probability that a child would work by approximately 10.6 percent and, for a child that was working, significantly reduced the hours worked per week by approximately 3.65 hours, on average.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Red de Protección Social program, and not to other factors.
Intervention Examined
Red de Protección Social (RPS)
Features of the Intervention
The Nicaraguan government implemented the Red de Protección Social (RPS) conditional cash transfer program in 2000, in 42 eligible rural districts to alleviate poverty and encourage children to stay in school. Eligible districts were identified by ranking districts by four weighted poverty measures: average family size, percentage without piped water, percentage without a latrine, and percentage of individuals over five who are illiterate. Districts with the highest poverty index scores were eligible for inclusion in the program. Households in districts with children between the ages of 7-13 who had not yet completed fourth grade were eligible to receive an annual subsidy of $112 USD in exchange for mandatory school enrollment and an 85 percent attendance rate for all children in the household.
Features of the Study
The original evaluation was randomized controlled trial (Maluccio & Flores, 2004). Using stratified random sampling, the 42 districts with highest poverty index scores were assigned to the treatment and control conditions (21 districts in each condition). Forty-two households were randomly selected from each of the 42 districts. Baseline survey data were collected on individuals, households, and districts in 2000, prior to implementation of the RPS program, with follow-up surveys in 2001 and 2002. The baseline sample included 1,764 households and 2,028 children aged 7-13 (979 in the treatment group and 1,049 in the control group). In the 2002 follow-up, there were 1,397 households and 1,702 children aged 9-15 (822 in the treatment group and 880 in the control group). Attrition at the child-level was 16 percent in both the treatment and control groups.
The current study used the baseline and the 2002 follow-up survey data to assess the program’s impact on children who were working. The author used regression analyses to assess the relationship between group assignment (treatment vs control) and the outcome variables (probability of work, number of hours worked per week). The regression model controlled for district (e.g., having secondary school), household (e.g., household size, expenditures), and child characteristics (e.g., age, gender, work at baseline).
Findings
Employment/Child labor
- The study found that the offer of a conditional cash transfer subsidy significantly reduced the probability that a child would work by approximately 10.6 percent.
- For children already working, the RPS program significantly reduced work hours by approximately 3.65 hours per child per week, on average.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
There were errors in Table 2 (2002 follow-up) and Table 3, where the number of observations for the treatment and control groups were transposed. Working backwards from the levels of attrition reported (16% for both treatment and control), the 2000 baseline for the unit of analysis (children): 2,028 (total), 979 (treatment), 1,049 (control), and the attrition reported on Table 3 and occurring between 2000 and 2002: 326 (total), 157 (treatment), 169 (control), it can be determined that the 2002 sample was: 1,702 (total), 822 (treatment), 880 (control), resulting in low attrition for the study. Due to errors in Table 2, statistics in the findings section were extracted from the text rather than Table 2.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Red de Protección Social program, and not to other factors.
Additional Sources
Maluccio, J. A., & Flores, R. (2004). Impact evaluation of a conditional cash transfer programme: The Nicaraguan Red de Protección Social. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.