Presented by Amber Peterman at EU/EFTA meeting in March 2018.

1. unite for
children
Research on “Gender Effects” of
Social Protection
Amber Peterman
On behalf of the UNICEF Office of Research—Innocenti
Transfer Project Team
EU/EFTA meeting; March 2018, Stockholm

2. 2
‘Gender’ Assumptions & research questions
1. Programs often target women as a means to achieve positive
outcomes (particularly for children) -- women are perceived as
spending cash in a more ‘family responsive’ way
 Research Question: Do welfare effects accrue differently if we
provide benefits to women versus men?
2. Under conditions of (1), it is assumed programs will ‘empower’
women beneficiaries
 Research Question: Do programs affect women’s wellbeing
outcomes, intra-household equity & change their sense of
agency/ability to affect change?

3. 3
Map based on Human Development Report (2014), Gender Inequality Index

4. 4
Program
Female
beneficiaries
(%)
Female-
headed
households
(%)
Ghana LEAP 65 60
Ghana LEAP 1000 100 11
Kenya CT-OVC 85 85
Malawi SCTP 84 84
Zambia CGP 99 -
Zambia MCT 75 -
Zimbabwe HSCT 68 68
~3/5 beneficiary HH are
female-headed
Overall, crude estimates:
~ 4/5 beneficiaries are
female
Figures for female-headed households may reflect evaluation sample, rather than
beneficiary sample. Zambia studies did not collect information on headship. Overall
crude estimates – average of averages, not weighted by number of beneficiaries
per program.
Gender targeting in unconditional cash
transfer evaluations

5. 5
Source: Natali et al. (2016). Making money work: Unconditional cash transfers allow women to save and re-invest in rural
Zambia [Innocenti Working Paper 2016-02]
Note: Impacts from multivariate models, solid = significant,
shaded = insignificant
What we know: Cash transfers increase
women’s economic standing
23
10
15
17
14
18
0
5
10
15
20
25
2 yrs 3 yrs 4 yrs 2 yrs 3 yrs 4 yrs
Percentagepointimpacts
Small businessesAny savings
Zambia Child Grant
• Large impacts on
savings & small
businesses
• Also on amount saved
• Similar findings in
several other
countries

6. 6
Cash transfers increase women’s subjective
wellbeing
10
45
50
25
38
7
59
50
36
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Happiness Life close to
ideal
Conditions
in life are
excellent
Satisfied
with life
Gotten
things I want
Would
change
almost
nothing
Feel positive
about future
Happiness Satisfied
with health
Percentagepointimpacts
Sources: Natali et al. (2018). Does money buy happiness?: Evidence from an unconditional cash transfer in Zambia SS&M-Population
Health 4: 225-235 & Kilburn et al. (2018) Paying for Happiness: Experimental Results from a Large Cash Transfer Program in Malawi
JPAM (in press)
Zambia (4 years) Malawi (1 year)
“It is not like I sit down and feel sorry for myself anymore, I actually thank God
for looking down on me. I have been able to start a business. . . and sometimes when
people come, they actually say ‘eh, this household looks good,’ to say that there
isn’t a man, one cannot believe!” ~Female beneficiary (abandoned by her husband) in Malawi
Note: Impacts from multivariate models, solid = significant, shaded = insignificant

7. 7
Cash transfers decrease women’s
experience of intimate partner violence
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Decrease Mixed Increase No
relationship
identified
Quantiative Qualitative
• Majority of studies (73%) showed decreases, impacts stronger for physical/sexual
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Controlling/
psycological/
economic
Emotional Physical and/or
sexual
Decrease Increase Not significant
Overall impacts on IPV
[22 studies]
Quantitative indicators
[56 total by IPV type]
Source: Buller et al. (2018). A Mixed Methods Review of Cash Transfers & Intimate Partner Violence in
LMICs [Innocenti Working Paper 2018-102]

8. 8
Intimate partner violence: 3 pathways
“There had been many fights. Because children needed many things
that we could not have afforded. I asked my husband and he used to
say there is no money. Then I used to get upset and started to yell. We
had many fights because of poverty. Not only for us, for all poor,
fights come from suffering” ~female beneficiary in CCT Turkey
Yildirim, J., Ozdemir, S., & Sezgin, F. 2014. A Qualitative Evaluation of a Conditional Cash Transfer
Program in Turkey: The Beneficiaries’ and Key Informants’ Perspectives. Journal of Social Service
Research, 40(1), 62-79.

9. 9
2
4 4
6
1 1
2
4
2
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Children's
health
Children's
schooling
Own income Partner's
income
Major
purchases
Daily
purchases
Children's
clothing
Family visits Own health
Percentagepointimpacts
Note: Impacts from multivariate models, solid = significant, shaded = insignificant
Zambia Child Grant (4 years): Sole or joint decisions
What we sort-of-know: Cash transfers
increase women’s decision-making
Source: Bonilla et al. (2017). Cash for women’s empowerment? A mixed methods evaluation of the Zambian Child Grant
Program, World Development 95:55-72.
• Question: “Who in your household typically decides XX”
• Impacts on 5 out of 9 domains – BUT total is qualitatively small (0.34
additional decisions)

10. 10
Review: Programming and impacts on
women’s empowerment in LMIC
“While many development initiatives seem to target women
specifically, or have women’s empowerment as one of their
objectives, no sufficient body of evidence overwhelmingly points to
success … (p. 29)”
Intervention
Quantitative
evidence
Qualitative
evidence
Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) +/- +
Unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) +/- More needed
Micro-finance +/- +/-
Agricultural interventions
+/- More
needed
+/- More
needed
Source: van den Bold et al. (2013). Women’s empowerment and nutrition: An evidence review. IFPRI Discussion
Paper 01294. Washington DC.: International Food Policy Research Institute.

11. 11
• Interviewer: “What does it mean to you to be empowered? For
example, if you were to describe a woman in your community who is
empowered, what would she be like?”
• Respondent: “Yes, there is a certain woman called Mary. She buys
fish and sells . . . before that she never used to do anything. She was
also receiving the CWAC money. Her husband had two wives . . .he
never paid attention to the CWAC money. She saved some money
and started buying fish and give her friends to sell for her in Mansa.
She was giving her friends because she didn’t have enough money
for transport costs. . . she made some good money and started going
to sell herself. She has changed; her children look very clean and
they eat well. She buys new clothes for herself and she looks nice.”
~female beneficiary (Kaputa district)
Some positive examples: Zambia

12. 12
A note of caution
• Even in “successful” case
studies, little evidence of
shifts in underlying
gender norms
• Gender blind or neutral
designs can result in
increasing or reinforcing
inequities
“Even in the laws of Zambia,
a woman is like a steering
wheel, and us (the men) are
the ones to drive them in
everything.” ~Male, age 53
(beneficiary)
Example: Conditionalities
reinforcing gender inequities
in unpaid labor/childcare,
exclusion from labor market
(Molyneux 2006)
Molyneux, M. (2006). Mothers at the service of the new poverty agenda: Progresa/
Oportunidades, Mexico's conditional transfer programme. Social Policy and Administration,
40 (4), 425-449. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9515.2006.00497.x

13. 13
What we don’t know: If welfare benefits accrue
differently if we give transfers to men or women
 Literature supporting this claim is dated, taken mostly
from studies on intra-household consumption/expenditure
– rather than gender-randomized experiments
 Where rigorous studies of gender randomization exist,
findings are mixed (Yoong et al. 2012)
 Few additional studies in past 5 years (Kenya, DRC), not
enough to clearly understand patterns across settings &
outcomes [hard to implement these experiments!]
Source: Yoong et al. (2012). The impact of economic resource transfers to women versus men: A
systematic review (Technical report). London, UK: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute
of Education, University of London.

14. 14
Summary: Gender
 What we know - Cash transfers predictably:
• Increase women’s economic standing & subjective wellbeing
• Decrease intimate partner violence
• Do not increase fertility or appear to change underlying gender norms
 What we sort-of-know - Cash transfers can:
• Increase women’s decision-making
• Result in women’s “empowerment”
• Affect safe transitions for adolescent girls (early marriage, sexual
debut, HIV risk etc.)
 What we don’t know - [many things!] but importantly:
• If welfare impacts accrues differently if benefits are transferred to
men or women
• How to best measure empowerment quantitatively
• How ‘cash plus’ & program variations affect success relative to costs

15. 15
What more can be done? Two ideas
1. Mobile money:
 Opportunities to leverage mobile transfers to link women to financial
services, information & increase impacts of cash alone
 Concern Worldwide pilot in Niger randomized mobile vs. manual and
found mobile transfers had larger impacts on access to land, mobility,
agricultural outcomes, food security (& more privacy, control over
transfers (Aker et al. 2016).
 Operational issues to overcome especially in national programs
2. Cash plus:
 Complementary programming & service linkages to promote gender-
equity & women’s empowerment (Roelen et al. 2017)
 Examples: Health insurance & services, case management, group
based economic interventions [depends on objectives, all need testing!]
Aker et al. (2016). “Payment Mechanisms and Anti-Poverty Programs: Evidence from a Mobile Money Cash
Transfer Experiment in Niger.” 65(1). Economic Development and Cultural Change. and Roelen et al. (2017).
How to make ‘Cash Plus’ work: Linking Cash Transfers to Services and Sectors UNICEF Office of Research
WP 2017-10.

16. 16
Tack
Asante
Zikomo
Ndinotenda
Grazie!
Ghana LEAP 1000
(© FAO/Ivan Grifi)

17. 17
• Transfer Project website: www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/transfer
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TransferProject
• Twitter: @TransferProjct Email: apeterman@unicef.org
For more information
©FAO/Ivan Grifi

18. 18
Program framework: Cash transfers & IPV

19. 19
IPV impacts: 2 quantitative studies from SSA
1. Give Directly (Kenya): NGO (Haushofer & Shapiro 2016)
 Unconditional cash transfer in rural Kenya over 12 months given to men
and women
 Found reductions in 6-month physical and sexual IPV
 Suggests poverty-related stress mechanisms
2. HTPN 068 (South Africa), NGO (Pettifor et al. 2016)
 Education focused CCT to young women and guardians aged 13-20 at
baseline over 4 years
 Found reductions in 12-month physical violence from partner
 Suggests transfer may enable young women to leave or not engage in
violent relationships