Learning About Labour Impacts of Cash Transfers in Zambia

Ervin Prifti, Estruch Elisenda, Silvio Daidone, Benjamin Davis, Paul Van Ufford, Michelo Stanfeld, Handa Sudhanshu, Seidenfeld David and Tembo Gelson

Journal of African Economies, 2017, vol. 26, issue 4, 433-442

Abstract: Over the past decade, several African governments have launched cash transfer (CT) programmes as part of social protection systems, with the aim of reducing poverty and hunger. Such programmes can also have significant impacts on rural livelihoods by inducing investments in productive activities and changing household labour allocation. In this paper, we look beyond the protective function of CTs and provide evidence on their impacts on labour supply. We use data from the second wave of the impact evaluation of the Zambia Child Grant model of the Social Cash Transfer programme. We focus on the response of households’ labour supply in terms of off-farm paid labour and own-farm labour. We find that CTs cause a shift from agricultural wage labour to own-farm labour and that overall have no work disincentives on-farm households.

Keywords: cash transfers; labour supply; treatment effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 H24 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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