Cash transfers and children’s education and labour among Malawi’s poor

Souteast Africa

Malawi

Social Protection

Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCT)

C Miller, M Tsoka

2012

Miller, Candace, and Maxton Tsoka. “Cash Transfers and Children’s Education and Labour Among Malawi’s Poor.” Development policy review 30.4 (2012): 499–522.
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Secondary Data: N. A.

2012

Social Cash-Transfer Scheme (SCTS)

2007-2008 (baseline and endline surveys)

The purpose of the study was to examine the short-term impacts of the Malawi Social Cash-Transfer Scheme (SCTS) on child education and labour. The main objective is to assess whether households receiving a monthly cash transfer invest in their children’s human-capacity development by prioritizing child education and reducing child labour outside the home.

The cash transfer is targeted at ultra-poor households that are also labour-constrained. Ultra-poor households are in the lowest expenditure quintile or below the food poverty line. Labour-constrained households either have no able-bodied adults aged 19-64 or have a dependency ratio worse than three so that one adult has to care for more than three children, elderly, or chronically ill household members.

By 2006 (before the RCT), the Malawi Social Cash-Transfer Scheme (SCTS) was operational in 7 out of 28 districts and reached more than 24,300 households and 98,000 beneficiaries throughout Malawi. In Mchinji, by April 2010, more than 11,000 households had received transfers every month. The SCTS was implemented by the Government of Malawi at the level of the District Assembly, financed mostly by donor partners, and utilized a community-based targeting strategy. In 2007, an RCT was conducted in a region that had not yet benefitted from the program (see “study design” below).

• School enrollment, school absenteeism
• Expenditure in education
• Child labour (household chores, income-generating activities)

RCT

Study design: in Malawi, the District Assembly divided the villages into groups consisting of approximately 1,000 households for the implementation of the program. In February 2007, Mchinji District Assembly identified the next eight village groups eligible for the SCTS. The scheme’s multi-stage, community participatory targeting process was implemented in order to select 10% of the poorest households that are also labour-constrained (approximately 100 eligible households per village group). The authors synchronised the evaluation with the District’s SCTS implementation activities. In March 2007, immediately after the District selected the next eight village groups to include in the scheme, the authors collected baseline data from all households selected to receive the cash transfer. With the District’s approval, four village groups were randomly assigned to the intervention and the remaining four to the comparison group. The intervention group began receiving transfers in April 2007. Qualitative data collection occurred in October and November 2007 and March 2008. The authors collected the endline survey in April 2008. The control group received transfer payments in May 2008.
Sample: In Malawi, the District Assembly divided the villages into groups consisting of approximately 1,000 households for the implementation of the SCTS. In February 2007, Mchinji District Assembly identified the next eight village groups eligible for the SCTS. The scheme’s multi-stage, community participatory targeting

process was implemented to select 10% of the poorest households that are also labour-constrained (approximately 100 eligible households per village group).
Survey Instrument: The questionnaire and qualitative instruments captured a range of demographic and economic information. The impact of cash on child education was measured using indicators of school enrolment, daily attendance, and per child expenditures on education. Child labour was measured using indicators of whether children perform household chores (i.e., shopping, collecting firewood or water, doing laundry, etc.), other family work (i.e., working in the fields, in businesses, or selling things), and income-generating activities outside the household for money.

Compared with non-beneficiaries, the intervention children experienced a 5-percentage point difference in enrolment, higher educational expenditures, fewer absences, and a 10-percentage point decrease in labour outside the home.

Child Labour

Households

National

Compared with non-beneficiaries, the intervention children experienced a 10-percentage point decrease in labour outside the home.

Compared with non-beneficiaries, the intervention children experienced a 5-percentage point difference in enrolment, higher educational expenditures, and fewer absences.

Limitations of the study: i) there is an incentive for SCT recipients to describe socially responsible behaviour, such as sending children to school and reducing child labour, which could potentially bias the study findings; ii) the authors did not have the sample size and the associated power necessary to detect statistically significant differences in the sub-group analysis of key outcomes; iii) the authors encountered loss of children to follow up the information due to child migration and fraud; iv) data collection occurred over one year, which allowed the measurement of change in key outcomes over time.