Can Conditional Cash Transfer Defer Child Marriage? Impact of Kanyashree Prakalpa in West Bengal, India

Subhasish Dey and Tanisha Ghosal
Additional contact information
Subhasish Dey: University of Warwick
Tanisha Ghosal: University of Warwick

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of a conditional cash transfer program called Kanyashree Prakalpa (KP) in the Indian state of West Bengal that aimed to improve the status and well-being of girls by reducing incidence of child marriage and increasing the secondary or higher education of girls till at least 18 years of age. Using the data from multiple rounds of National Family Health Survey (NFHS), difference-in-differences and triple-difference are employed considering the younger cohort (exposed to the program) as the treated group, the older cohort (not exposed to the program) as the control group, and the neighbouring state of Jharkhand as a comparison state. The analysis suggests that the KP program has reduced the probability of child marriage by 6.7 percent and increased the probability of secondary or higher educational attainment by 6 percent. The study contributes to the scarce literature of the significant long-term impact of the KP program towards women’s well-being and empowerment.

Keywords: Kanyashree Prakalpa; West Bengal; Impact; Education; Child Marriage JEL Classification: I38; J12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/w ... twerp_1333_-_dey.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:warwec:1333

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Margaret Nash ().