Social Assistance, Labour Markets and Intra-household Decision-making: Evaluation of the AFAM-PE Programme in Uruguay

Abstract

The expansion of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) over the past two decades has renewed interest in how these policies affect the behaviour of beneficiaries in the labour market—in particular, whether or not they discourage labour supply or labour market formalisation. Moreover, the view that women’s empowerment is conducive to efficiency and development has shaped the political debate and influenced socioeconomic policies in the region. Thus, most CCT programmes in countries of the LAC region target poor and vulnerable families and see that women are the primary recipient of benefits; the main argument supporting such a distribution is that money received or earned by women is allocated differently in the household budget compared to money received or earned by men. Women tend to use the money in a way that improves the welfare of the household—and particularly of children—as a whole (Thomas 1990). Though women are the main recipients of CCTs, the gender implications of these programmes and their impact on the lives of women, particularly in terms of their behaviour in the labour market, has not been thoroughly studied (see Bosch and Manacorda 2012 for a recent survey).