The effect of social programs and exposure to professionals on the educational aspirations of the poor

Carlos Chiapa (), José Luis Garrido () and Silvia Prina ()
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José Luis Garrido: El Colegio de México
Silvia Prina: Case Western Reserve University

Serie documentos de trabajo del Centro de Estudios Económicos from El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos

Abstract: Investment in human capital is an important tool for reducing poverty. However, the poor may lack the capacity to aspire, which often results in underinvestment in their children’s education. This paper studies the effect of a social program on the educational aspirations of the poor, and explores the role of exposure to educated professionals as a possible channel for increasing aspirations. First, using differences-in-differences, we show that beneficiary parents of the Mexican antipoverty program PROGRESA have higher educational aspirations for their children of a third of a school year than do non-beneficiary parents. This effect corresponds to a 15% increase in the proportion of parents who aspire for their children to finish college. Then, we exploit the design of the program whose requirements cause its target population to have different levels of mandated exposure to doctors and nurses. Our triple difference estimate shows that, educational aspirations for children from high-exposure households (relative to low- exposure households) in treatment villages (relative to control villages) were a third of a school year higher six months after the start of the program (relative to before its introduction). These results suggest that the change in aspirations is driven by exposure to highly educated professionals.

Keywords: social programs; educational aspirations; poverty; educational aspirations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H53 I21 I22 I32 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-edu and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The effect of social programs and exposure to professionals on the educational aspirations of the poor (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2010-11

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