Cash Transfers and Intra-Household Decision-Making in Uruguay

Cecilia Parada

Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 2023, vol. 44, issue 3, No 15, 757-775

Abstract: Abstract Variations in the incomes of a particular household member can lead to changes in their decision-making power within the household affecting several outcomes. This paper estimates the effects of the PANES program (Plan de Atención Nacional a la Emergencia Social), a cash transfer program focused on low-income households of Uruguay between 2005 and 2007, on four different outcomes: the probability of divorce, changes in household size, distribution of household chores, and the probability of women becoming heads of household. My identification strategy exploits the discontinuity in the program assignment of beneficiaries resulting from a continuous pre-treatment eligibility score. The program increased the probability of maintaining the same marital status and the stability of the household size. These results persist once beneficiaries stop receiving benefits, at least in the short term. No effects were found in the likelihood of performing household chores when considering all beneficiaries, but heterogeneous effects were observed depending on their gender. Despite women being the primary recipients of the program, no impacts were found on their probability of being heads of households. This paper shows how public policies can affect the private lives of program recipients on outcomes beyond the policy objectives. In particular, cash transfers and conditionalities can affect gender equality and the distribution of household chores.

Keywords: Intra-household decisions; Cash transfers; Conditionalities; Divorce; Household chores; Gender differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I38 J12 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10834-022-09856-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:jfamec:v:44:y:2023:i:3:d:10.1007_s10834-022-09856-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... es/journal/10834/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10834-022-09856-x

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Family and Economic Issues is currently edited by Joyce Serido

More articles in Journal of Family and Economic Issues from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().