Cash transfer programme, productive activities and labour supply: evidence from a randomised experiment in Kenya

East Africa

Kenya

Social Protection

Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT)

S Asfaw, B Davis, J Dewbre, S Handa, ...

2014

Asfaw, Solomon, et al. “Cash Transfer Programme, Productive Activities, and Labour Supply: Evidence from a Randomised Experiment in Kenya.” Journal of Development Studies 50.8 (2014): 1172–1196. Web.
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Kenya CT-OVC data is available at https://transfer.cpc.unc.edu/.

2014

Kenya Cash Transfer Programme for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CT-OVC).

2007-2011 (baseline and end-line surveys)

The primary goal of the program is to build human capital and improve the care of OVC, but the authors state that there are good reasons to believe that the CT-OVC program can have impacts on household decision making, including labor supply, accumulation of productive assets, and productive activities.

OVCs are defined as household residents up to 17 years old with at least one deceased parent, or a parent who is chronically ill, or whose main caregiver is chronically ill. The value of the transfer represented an average of 14 percent of the expenditures of the beneficiary households in 2011.

The social protection program reached over 150,000 households as of December 2012, with the ultimate goal of providing coverage to 300,000 households. A flat monthly transfer of Ksh1500 (approximately USD21; increased in the 2011/2012 budget from Ksh1500 to Ksh2000) is given to those households who are ultra-poor and contain OVC. The impact evaluation followed the program’s targeting process, which involved three stages. In stage one, seven districts were chosen for inclusion in the program, based on overall poverty levels and the prevalence of HIV/AIDS (directly related to OVC). In the second stage, within each of the seven districts that were scheduled to be included in this expansion phase, four locations were identified as eligible, two of which were subsequently randomized out of the initial expansion phase and served as control locations. Targeting of households was carried out in the intervention locations according to standard program operation guidelines in the third stage. Each location formed a committee of citizens charged with identifying potentially eligible households based on criteria of ultra-poverty and containing at least one OVC as defined above.

• Participation of children in farm labor
• Other economic outcomes (access to credit, adult labor allocation, etc).

RCT

Study design: the design of the impact evaluation followed the program’s targeting process, which involved three stages (see “Intervention” above).
Sample: data was collected at baseline (2007) and a second-round follow-up in 2011. Not having data on some variables for the 2007 survey means that for many of the outcome variables of interest we have only one data point (no baseline). This limited the author’s ability to control for time-invariant unobservable characteristics in the impact estimation for some of the outcome variables with no baseline information.
Survey Instrument: baseline household survey (and related community survey) conducted in mid-2007 and a 24-month follow-up in 2009. Both the baseline and first follow-up surveys had collected only limited data on production activities and labor supply; thus, to measure the economic impacts of CT intervention at the individual and household level, additional data were collected in 2011 follow up.

The Kenya’s Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme had a positive and significant impact on food consumption coming from home production, accumulation of productive assets, especially on the ownership of small livestock, and formation of nonfarm enterprise, especially for females. The program has provided more flexibility to families in terms of labor allocation decisions, particularly for those who are geographically isolated. The program was also found to reduce child labor.

Child Labour

Households

National

The Kenya’s Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme was found to reduce child labour.

The Kenya’s Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children Programme had a positive and significant impact on food consumption coming from home production, accumulation of productive assets, especially on the ownership of small livestock, and formation of nonfarm enterprise, especially for females. The program has provided more flexibility to families in terms of labour allocation decisions, particularly for those who are geographically isolated.

N. A.