Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Covarrubias, K., Davis, B. & Winters, P. (2012). From protection to production: Productive impacts of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer scheme, Journal of Development Effectiveness, 4(1), 50-77.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to assess the impact of the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme (SCTS) on household work activities, including child labor.
- The study used household survey data from a randomized controlled trial. Due to pre-existing baseline differences between the original treatment and control groups, the authors used a matched comparison group design to compare child schooling and labor outcomes between children in the treatment group and those in the control group.
- The study found that the SCTS program significantly decreased the proportion of children in paid domestic work outside of the household and the proportion of children pulled from school to work for food or money.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is moderate because there was compromised randomization but the authors ensured that the groups being compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are somewhat confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme (SCTS); however, other factors might have also contributed.
Intervention Examined
Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme
Features of the Intervention
The Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme (SCTS) was designed to alleviate poverty through the distribution of cash transfers. The program was implemented in the Mchinji District in Malawi, in eight local areas called Village Development Groups (VDGs). Households in the bottom 10 percent of incomes were given a cash transfer, although the specific selection process and inclusion criteria varied by VDG. While the authors consider the program to be an “unconditional cash transfer program,” households can receive a larger transfer based on school participation. In the program, the treatment group received $4-13 (USD) per month based on the number of household members, plus $1.30 (USD) for each child attending primary school and $2.60 (USD) for each child attending secondary school.
Features of the Study
The study used household survey data from a randomized controlled trial (Miller, Tsoka, & Reichert, 2008). Eight VDGs were randomly assigned to either the treatment (n=4) or control group (n=4). Each VDG selected households for participation in the study. A survey was administered before program initiation, and then 6 and 12 months later. The control group did not receive any benefits until after the one-year follow-up survey was administered. At that point, they could receive the same benefits as the treatment group.
In the original study, that there were differences between the treatment and control groups at baseline, possibly due to the different selection process of households in each VDG. To mitigate these differences, the current study used the original treatment and control groups to construct a matched comparison group. The propensity score matching approach matched on several individual child and household characteristics (i.e., child age, child gender, head of household education level). After matching, there were 365 treatment households (1,090 children) and 386 control households (786 children) after removing those who did not complete the study surveys. The authors conducted a difference-in-differences analyses where they looked at the size of the change for the treatment group, controlling for change in the matched-comparison group. The difference-in-differences approach controlled for baseline differences on child outcomes including school attendance and child labor.
Findings
Employment/Child labor
- After a year of the intervention, the study found that there was a significantly smaller proportion of children in the treatment group that participated in paid domestic work outside of the household than in the control group.
- However, there was not a significant difference between the treatment and control groups in the proportion of children that participated in non-household income work or in the hours spent on non-household income work.
Education (School participation/enrollment)
- A year after the intervention started, a significantly smaller proportion of children participating in the program were pulled from school to work for food or money, relative to the control group.
- However, there was not a significant difference between the treatment and control group in the proportion of children who attended school or the average number of days missed from school.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
Random assignment was compromised for this study because, after randomly assigning the communities to the treatment or control group, the authors note that the household selection process differed by Village Development Group (VDG). Since there were only four VDGs in each of the treatment and the control groups, the selection process may have created systematic differences between the two groups.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is moderate because there was compromised randomization but the authors ensured that the groups being compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are somewhat confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Scheme (SCTS); however, other factors might have also contributed.
Additional Sources
Miller, C., Tsoka, M., & Reichert, K. (2008). Impact evaluation report: external evaluation of the Mchinji Social Cash Transfer Pilot. Boston: Center for International Health and Development, Boston University, and Zomba: Centre for Social Research, University of Malawi.