Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Conditional cash transfer programmes have spread to over 60 countries in the past two decades, but little is known about their long-term effects. We estimate the lasting impact of childhood exposure to the Mexico's flagship programme Progresa by leveraging the age structure of benefits and geographic variation in early programme penetration nationwide. Childhood exposure improves women's outcomes in early adulthood with increases in educational attainment, geographic mobility, labour market performance and household living standards. For men, effects are smaller and more difficult to distinguish from spatial convergence.

AbstractConditional cash transfer (CCT) programs, which link transfers to investment in human capital in poor families, have spread around the world over the past two decades. This paper studies the medium‐term effects of Progresa, the pioneering Mexican CCT program, on fertility using nationwide vital statistics combined with administrative data on program receipt. The effects of CCTs are likely to vary by age of the woman, and we study impacts by five‐year age intervals. We test and account for possible underreporting of births using indirect methods. We find that Progresa led to an important and statistically significant decline in teenage fertility and smaller, but still significant, effects on reducing the fertility of older women.

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In this paper we investigate whether a conditional cash transfer program such as the Programa Nacional de Educación, Salud y Alimentación (PROGRESA) can simultaneously combat the problems of low school attendance and child work. PROGRESA is a new program of the Mexican government aimed at alleviating extreme poverty in rural areas. It combats the different causes of poverty by providing cash benefits that are targeted directly to households on the condition of children attending school and visiting health clinics on a regular basis. Some of the questions addressed are as follows: Does the program reduce child labor? Does it increase participation in school activities? Does the latter occur at the expense of children's leisure time? And how do the effects of the program vary by age group and gender? Our empirical analysis relies on data from a quasi-experimental design used to evaluate the impact of the program involving a sample of communities that receive PROGRESA benefits (treatment) and comparable communities that receive benefits at a later time (control). We estimate the effect of "treatment on the treated" using both double-difference and cross sectional difference estimators. Our estimates show significant increases in the school attendance of boys and girls that are accompanied by significant reductions in the participation of boys and girls in work activities. We also find that the program has a lower impact on the incidence of work for girls relative to boys. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1 ; FCND

Immigration is commonly considered to be selective of more educated individuals. Previous US studies comparing the educational attainment of Mexican immigrants in the United States to that of the Mexican resident population support this characterization. Upward educational‐attainment biases in both coverage and measurement, however, may be substantial in US data sources. Moreover, differences in educational attainment by place size are very large within Mexico, and US data sources provide no information on immigrants' places of origin within Mexico. To address these problems, we use multiple sources of nationally representative Mexican survey data to re‐evaluate the educational selectivity of working‐age Mexican migrants to the United States over the 1990s and 2000s. We document disproportionately rural and small‐urban‐area origins of Mexican migrants and a steep positive gradient of educational attainment by place size. We show that together these conditions induced strongly negative educational selection of Mexican migrants throughout the 1990s and 2000s. We interpret this finding as consistent with low returns to education among unauthorized migrants and few opportunities for authorized migration.

In this article, the authors analyze the development of Progresa, a Mexican antipoverty program that conditions monetary transfers to human capital investment of its beneficiary families. The program is the principal antipoverty strategy of the Mexican government and has served as a model for similar programs in a number of countries in Latin America. Progresa is also noteworthy because it was subject to a rigorous evaluation effort in rural areas, which included an experimental design. The authors first describe the rationale behind the design of Progresa, in particular, the conditioning of monetary transfers to children's school attendance and regular health clinic visits. The authors then turn to the evaluation effort, analyzing the randomized trial, the evaluation results, and the effect of the evaluation on the evolution of the program. Finally, the authors consider the limitations of the evaluation as well as areas where more research is needed.

In this article, the authors analyze the development of Progresa, a Mexican antipoverty program that conditions monetary transfers to human capital investment of its beneficiary families. The program is the principal antipoverty strategy of the Mexican government & has served as a model for similar programs in a number of countries in Latin America. Progresa is also noteworthy because it was subject to a rigorous evaluation effort in rural areas, which included a study on experimental design. The authors first describe the rationale behind the design of Progresa, in particular, the conditioning of monetary transfers to children's school attendance & regular health clinic visits. The authors then turn to the evaluation effort, analyzing the randomized trial, the evaluation results, & the effect of the evaluation on the evolution of the program. Finally, the authors consider the limitations of the evaluation as well as areas where more research is needed. 5 Tables, 32 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2005 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]

We study the effects of an unexpected and large migration from Venezuela on Peruvian labor markets. From 2017 to 2019, about 800,000 Venezuelans migrated to Peru, with 84% settling in the Lima metropolitan area. The percentage of Venezuelans in the working age population in Lima increased from nearly 0 to over 10%, with migrants having higher education on average than the local labor force. We propose a simple assignment model of the labor market, which suggests that migration will lead to a reallocation of local workers toward low-skilled jobs. Using synthetic control methods and comparing Lima with a group of other Peruvian metropolitan areas, we find evidence of adjustment in occupational structure in the direction predicted by the model with few decreases in employment of local workers.

JEL Classification Codes: F22; J04; O15

As colleges and universities rapidly closed due to COVID-19, students and faculty were faced with unique challenges. The pandemic forced the cancellation of all campus activities, both extra-curricular and program-focused, such as student teaching experiences and nursing clinical rotations. Additionally, instructors were forced to rethink content delivery as coursework was quickly moved online and administered remotely via virtual platforms. Students were impacted as university level programs underwent a major paradigm shift within a matter of days or weeks. This study examined perspectives of undergraduate and graduate students regarding their experiences with rapid conversion from on-ground, in-person courses to remote instruction during the spring 2020 semester. The researchers employed a QUAN-QUAL descriptive mixed methods design. Using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, the researchers examined general perspectives on in-person learning before the pandemic; initial perceptions about remote learning; and perceptions of the students about effort, engagement, needs, and ethical behavior as they engaged in totally remote learning. Results, analyzed using SPSS (QUAN) and inter-coder agreement (QUAL), indicated that initially students were engaged and satisfied with their in-person instruction, but became less satisfied and engaged during remote instruction. Undergraduate students experienced feelings of increased frustration, decreased accountability and engagement during remote learning, and turned to collaboration to earn points as they finished the semester.