IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/113161.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The impacts of cash transfers on women?s empowerment : learning from Pakistan?s BISP program

Author

Listed:
  • Ambler, Kate
  • De Brauw,Alan

Abstract

Large-scale government cash transfer programs have become an important element of social protection and poverty reduction strategies throughout the developing world. Pakistan is no exception; in 2008, Pakistan established the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) as an unconditional cash transfer targeted at the poorest of the poor. The primary goal of the BISP program is to provide the poorest households in Pakistan with unconditional transfers in order to improve their consumption and investments in children. To attain this goal, it is believed important that the transfers are provided directly to women to ensure the funds are spent as intended. Beyond changes in consumption and investment, directing these transfers to women can also serve to empower women by increasing household resources under their control. We analyze the impacts of Pakistan?s BISP program on women?s decision-making power within households using data collected between 2011 and 2013 as the program was rolling out. Using fuzzy regression discontinuity methods to statistically identify impacts, the BISP transfer is found to have substantial, positive impacts on some variables measuring women?s decision-making power and empowerment.

Suggested Citation

  • Ambler, Kate & De Brauw,Alan, 2017. "The impacts of cash transfers on women?s empowerment : learning from Pakistan?s BISP program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 113161, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:113161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/840271488779553030/pdf/113161-WP-P103160-PUBLIC-Social-Protection-Labor-no-1702.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alan de Brauw & Amber Peterman, 2020. "Can conditional cash transfers improve maternal health care? Evidence from El Salvador's Comunidades Solidarias Rurales program," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 700-715, June.
    2. Muhammad Tariq & Aneesa & Farah Khan, 2019. "The Effects of Social Protection Program on Food Consumption and Poverty in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan," Business & Economic Review, Institute of Management Sciences, Peshawar, Pakistan, vol. 11(1), pages 55-82, March.
    3. Nawaz, Saima & Iqbal, Nasir, 2020. "The impact of unconditional cash transfer on fuel choices among ultra-poor in Pakistan: Quasi-experimental evidence from the Benazir Income Support Program," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    4. Tehmeena Iqbal & Shujaat Farooq & Ihtsham Ul Haq Padda, 2021. "Can Empowerment be Enhanced by Putting Cash in the Hands of Poor Women? Learning from Pakistan’s BISP Program," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(3), pages 760-792, June.
    5. Alvi, Muzna & Ward, Patrick & Makhija, Simrin & Spielman, David J., 2023. "Do grassroots interventions relax behavioural constraints and improve adoption of nutrition-sensitive food production systems?," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 68(01), September.
    6. Balasubramanian, Pooja & Ibanez, Marcela & Khan, Sarah & Sahoo, Soham, 2024. "Does women's economic empowerment promote human development in low- and middle-income countries? A meta-analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    7. Yashodhan Ghorpade & Patricia Justino, 2019. "Winning or buying hearts and minds?: Cash transfers and political attitudes in Pakistan," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-91, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Iqbal, Nasir & Nawaz, Saima & Yew, Siew Ling, 2021. "Unconditional cash transfers, child labour and education: theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 437-457.
    9. Barr, Nicholas, 2019. "Gender and family: conceptual overview," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101237, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Harris-Fry, Helen & Saville, Naomi M. & Paudel, Puskar & Manandhar, Dharma S. & Cortina-Borja, Mario & Skordis, Jolene, 2022. "Relative power: Explaining the effects of food and cash transfers on allocative behaviour in rural Nepalese households," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    11. Nawaz, Saima & Iqbal, Nasir, 2021. "How cash transfers program affects environmental poverty among ultra-poor? Insights from the BISP in Pakistan," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PB).
    12. Etienne Lwamba & Shannon Shisler & Will Ridlehoover & Meital Kupfer & Nkululeko Tshabalala & Promise Nduku & Laurenz Langer & Sean Grant & Ada Sonnenfeld & Daniela Anda & John Eyers & Birte Snilstveit, 2022. "Strengthening women's empowerment and gender equality in fragile contexts towards peaceful and inclusive societies: A systematic review and meta‐analysis," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(1), March.
    13. Simona Helmsmüller & Andreas Landmann, 2022. "Does free hospitalization insurance change health care consumption of the poor? Short-term evidence from Pakistan," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 47(1), pages 238-275, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:113161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Aaron F Buchsbaum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wrldbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.