Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
de Hoop, J., Friedman, J., Kandpal, E., & Rosati, F. (2017). Child schooling and child work in the presence of a partial education subsidy. Retrieved from http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/501961504719564270/pdf/WPS8182.pdf
Highlights
- The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of a conditional cash transfer program, the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program, on children’s school attendance and participation and their participation in work inside and outside of their households.
- The study was a randomized controlled trial. The researchers used household surveys, administered at baseline and two and half years after the intervention began, to assess program impact on schooling and child labor outcomes between the treatment and control groups.
- The study found that, two and a half years after the program began, a significantly higher proportion of children participating in the program worked for pay outside of their household than children not participating in the program. However, there was a significantly greater proportion of children in the treatment group than the control group who attended school and attended school regularly. Similarly, children in the treatment group attended a significantly greater number of days of school than those in the control group.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program, and not to other factors.
Intervention Examined
Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program
Features of the Intervention
The Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (referred to as Pantawid), is a conditional cash transfer program operated in the Philippines, whose goals are to encourage households to support children’s health and to keep them in school rather than child labor activities. Participating households receive 300 Philippine Pesos ($7 USD) per month for each child (up to three children), aged 6-14, and attends school regularly. Households also receive 500 Philippine Pesos ($11 USD) each month if they meet certain health care conditions: that pregnant women and children 5 or younger visit health clinics, that children 6-14 get deworming treatment, and that the household member who received the payment, or their spouse, attends Family Development Sessions. To be eligible to participate, households needed to have a Proxy Means Test (PMT) score (an indicator of poverty) below the poverty level ($2.15 USD per person) and either have a child younger than 14 or a woman who was pregnant. The study was conducted by the World Bank and the Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Features of the Study
The study was a randomized controlled trial in which the researchers randomly assigned 130 villages to create the treatment and control groups, with 65 villages in each group. The final sample included 637 children 10-14 years old in the treatment group and 627 in the control group. The control households did not receive any benefits. The outcome variables of school attendance and child labor were assessed using a survey administered to households 2.5 years after the intervention began. In the survey, school attendance questions were answered by a mother, guardian or caregiver, and child labor questions were answered by the child themselves. Regression analyses assessed the relationship between group assignment (treatment vs control) and each intervention outcome (child school attendance and child labor), focusing on children ages 10-14. These analyses controlled for location (municipality) and child age.
Findings
Employment/Child labor
- After two and half years, a significantly higher proportion of children in the treatment group than in the control group worked for pay outside of their own household.
- However, after two and a half years, there was not a significant difference in the proportion of children in the treatment group than in the control who group who did any work or worked for pay inside their own household.
- There was also not a significant difference between the treatment and control group in the number of days worked for pay, or days worked inside or outside their own household.
Education (School participation/enrollment)
- After two and a half years, there was a significantly greater proportion of children in the treatment group than the control group who attended school and attended school regularly.
- In addition, after two and a half years, children in the treatment group had attended significantly more days of school in the past two weeks than children in the control group.
- There were no significant differences between the treatment and control group in the proportion of children who attend primary school, secondary school, or who attend secondary school regularly. However, there was a significantly larger proportion of children in the treatment group than the control group who attend primary school regularly.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The authors note that the they did not have information on how consistently the requirements to receive the cash transfers were enforced. Differing enforcement practices could have affected the size of the program impact, for example, by not providing sufficient encouragement for households to keep children in school.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is high because it was based on a well-implemented randomized controlled trial. This means we are confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program, and not to other factors.