An Evaluation of the Impacts of Bolsa Família on Schooling

Type Thesis or Dissertation - Master Thesis
Title An Evaluation of the Impacts of Bolsa Família on Schooling
Author(s)
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2013
URL http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&recordOId=3809846&fileOId=3809848
Abstract
Conditional cash transfer programs have been proven effective when aiming to decrease poverty and increase school enrollment among poor. The Brazilian conditional cash transfer program Bolsa Família is the largest program in the developing world and affect 13 million families in their everyday life. One of the long-term aims of Bolsa Família is to increase school enrollment in Brazil, which also is the focus of this thesis. With human capital theory as the foundation and with data from the Brazilian household survey PNAD2011, a regression discontinuity design is carried out in order to evaluate the impacts of Bolsa Família on school enrollment. As a complement to this analysis, semi-structured interviews with ten beneficiaries are conducted. The main result from the evaluation is that Bolsa Família does not increase school enrollment but appear to provide help for the children in poor and extremely poor families to assimilate education.

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