World Development 113 (2019) 352–367Contents lists available.docx

World Development 113 (2019) 352–367
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
World Development
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev
The power of lump sums: Using maternity payment schedules to
reduce
the gender asset gap in households reached by Brazil’s Bolsa
Família
conditional cash transfer
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.08.012
0305-750X/� 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
E-mail address: [email protected]
1 Other conditions vary by program, but they can include
attending health
education sessions, obtaining prenatal care, or getting an ID
card. For reviews of
conditional cash transfers, see (Valencia Lomelí, 2008; Fizbein,
Schady, & Ferreira,
2009; Lagarde, Haines, & Palmer, 2007; Ranganathan &
Lagarde, 2012; Saavedra &
García, 2012).
2 Bolsa Família officials preferentially sign up women for the
benefit and
card to them; in a household where a woman is not available,
however, a
sign up to receive the money (Lindert, Linder, Hobbs, & de la
Brière, 2007,

Gregory Duff Morton
Bard College, 30 Campus Road, Red Hook, NY 12504, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Accepted 26 August 2018
Available online 27 September 2018
Keywords:
Bolsa Família
Maternity benefits
Conditional cash transfer
Gender asset gap
Salário Maternidade
Household budgets
a b s t r a c t
Can cash assistance have an influence on gender relations inside
a household? What are the processes
through which this influence occurs? The present article
investigates the everyday uses of money that
women receive from two gender-targeted social programs in
rural Brazil. Bolsa Família is a conditional
cash transfer that disburses money to women every month. The
Maternity Wage is a program that gives
a sizeable lump sum to women when they become pregnant.
Drawing from two years of ethnographic
research in two villages in Northeastern Brazil, I show how
these different payment schedules can lead
to different patterns of investment in assets. I find that women
typically spend monthly cash assistance
on items, like clothing and furniture, that correspond to local
stereotypes about feminine property. By
contrast, lump sums are used by women to purchase income-
generating assets, like cows and fields, that
would normally be held by men. Monthly money reinforces
gendered stereotypes about assets, while

lump-sum money challenges those stereotypes. Lump sums
thereby enable women to become the own-
ers of wealth that generates a flow of income over time. I
identify two key qualities that underlie this
change: a payment’s large size and its unpredictability. These
qualities affect the mental accounting that
beneficiaries use to understand their money and the institutions
through which they save it. By outlining
such processes, the article brings the literature on conditional
cash transfers into dialogue with studies on
the gender asset gap. Lump sums can help to re-gender a
household’s assets. This finding suggests that
cash assistance policy, particularly in the case of conditional
cash transfers, might be able to have an
effect on gender equity by making use of targeted lump sums.
� 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Conditional cash transfers have become important tools for
fighting poverty in middle-income countries. Their importance
derives, in part, from their promise to tackle poverty and gender
inequity at the same time. Conditional cash transfer programs
(CCTs) provide modest, regular cash payments, which are
usually
delivered to women in families with low incomes; in exchange
for the money, children must attend school, receive vaccines,
and
comply with other human-capital ‘‘conditions.”1
In the case of Brazil’s Bosla Família, the world’s largest CCT,
money arrives from the federal government, every month, on a
debit card whose secret code is chosen by the woman receiving
the benefit.2 Policymakers intend for this delivery system to
change
gender relations inside the family (De Brauw, Gilligan,

Hoddinott, &
Roy, 2014, p. 487; Gil-García, 2016, p. 451; Barrientos, 2012,
p. 15;
Adato, De la Briere, Mindek, & Quisumbing, 2000, p. 46).
CCTs thus
raise important questions about what happens to cash once it
reaches a household. Who holds onto the money, who gives
orders
about it, and who spends it? Do households use some of this
money
to buy assets? If so, who owns them?
An outpouring of ethnographic research, in Brazil and beyond,
has begun to answer these questions by documenting the mecha-
nisms through which CCT cash circulates inside households
(Streuli, 2012a,b; Adato et al., 2000; Pires, 2014; Rego &
Pinzani,
2013; Suárez & Libardoni, 2007; Pires and da Silva Jardim,
2014).
issue the
man can
p. 17).
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4 Among survey respondents in rural areas, De Brauw et al.
(2014) find a negative
relationship between receipt of Bolsa Família and women’s
reports that they are the

exclusive decision-makers in household decisions about food,
employment, and
children’s school attendance. Ethnographic evidence from Rio
Branco and Maracujá
(the villages analyzed in the present article) suggests one
possible explanation from
G.D. Morton / World Development 113 (2019) 352–367 353
The present article contributes by focusing on payment
schedule:
how often the money arrives.3 Does it matter that women
receive
this money every month? Would the money have a different
effect
on the household if it came, instead, as a lump sum?
This article is based on ethnography carried out over eighteen
months, from 2011 to 2013, with 51 households receiving Bolsa
Família in the sertão region of rural Brazil. The article relies on
the contrast between Bolsa Família and a different social
program,
the Rural Maternity Wage (Salário Maternidade rural). While
Bolsa
Família enters the household each month, the Maternity Wage is
a
lump sum that women can obtain in a single payment when they
become pregnant.
As it considers the uses of money from these different sources,
the article concentrates on one aspect of household relations:
the
ownership of assets. Ethnography is used to document which
assets – like cows, fields, and appliances – are considered to
belong
to a man or a woman. The article investigates the impact that
social

assistance programs can have on the gendering of these assets.
In
so doing, the article brings CCT scholarship into dialogue with
the literature on the gender asset gap (Deere & Doss, 2006;
Doss,
Deere, Oduro, & Swaminathan, 2014).
I find that women buy assets with some portion of the money
they receive from both Bolsa Família and the Maternity Wage,
but they use the money from each program differently. Bolsa
Famí-
lia’s monthly money often goes towards items that correspond
to
local stereotypes about feminine property – like appliances and
furniture. By contrast, the lump sum from the Maternity Wage
allows women to buy assets that, in these villages, normally
belong
to men – income-generating assets like cows and fields. In other
words, monthly money reinforces gendered stereotypes about
assets, while lump-sum money challenges those stereotypes.
Why do women spend money from the two programs differ-
ently? Anthropological investigation demonstrates that the one-
time lump sum is profoundly disruptive to a household’s normal
budgeting practices. The lump-sum schedule influences people’s
habits of mental accounting and the institutions available to
help
them save. Because of its disruptiveness, I suggest, a lump sum
cre-
ates an opening for household members to reorient the
gendering
of assets.
The article identifies two reasons for the disruptiveness: pay-
ment size and payment unpredictability. First, the Maternity
Wage

delivers a sum whose size is often ten times larger than the per
capita monthly income of a household at the research site, and
because the payment is so large, households cannot save this
money through their habitual savings practices. Instead,
household
members develop new practices of mental accounting. They
make
use of unaccustomed modes of saving—modes such as having
women own masculine assets.
Secondly, the Maternity Wage is granted with great unpre-
dictability. More than half of women who apply for the benefit
are denied. Because of this unpredictability, existing
institutions
do not allow a household to take out credit in anticipation of the
lump sum. If the benefit does arrive, the household must
manage
it as an unanticipated positive shock. Women tend to respond to
this shock by acquiring assets, such as cows and fields, that
serve
as an ongoing source of income. Through the new assets, the
household smooths out the sudden increase in cash by spreading
it over time. These income-generating assets are the property of
3 There have been several scholarly appeals calling for greater
attention to timing
in the analysis of CCTs. Fizbein, Schady and Ferreira noted,
‘‘Timing of payments is
another potentially important design feature. To date, however,
few programs have
experimented in that direction” (2009, p. 133). Rabinovich and
Diepeveen echoed this
theme six years later: ‘‘The impact of dimensions such as the
timing and amount of
transfers and delivery agents and mechanisms remains largely
unexamined” (2015, p.
638).

a woman, which changes intra-household distribution over the
long run.
Lump sums, then, have a special, disruptive capacity to change
the gender asset gap inside the household. This capacity means
that they are potentially powerful tools for social policy.
This article speaks to the extensive literature that documents
the gender effects of conditional cash transfers. CCTs are, at
heart,
gendered policy. The programs were originally motivated by
theo-
retical (Chiappori, 1992; McElroy & Horney, 1981; Lundberg &
Pollak, 1993; Agarwal, 1997) and empirical (Quisumbing &
Maluccio, 2000) research challenging the ‘‘unitary” view that
all
members of a household share a single set of preferences. CCT
pio-
neers found inspiration in studies suggesting that women are
more
likely than men to spend additional income on children
(Thomas,
1990; Hoddinott & Haddad, 1995), although subsequent results
have not always been as tidy (Handa, Peterman, Davis, &
Stampini, 2009; Yablonski and Peterman, 2016; for a review,
see
Yoong, Rabinovich, & Diepeveen, 2012).
More recent empirical work has gone beyond the question of
women’s expenditures on children, examining a range of
gendered
CCT outcomes (van den Bold, Quisumbing, & Gillespie, 2013;
Chap-
ter 3 in Holmes & Jones, 2013). In large-scale surveys,
Mexico’s
Progresa/Oportunidades/Prospera is associated with lower levels

of violence against women (Rivera, Hernández, & Castro, 2006;
Angelucci, 2008) and an increase in women’s reports that they
decide how to spend their own money (Attanasio & Lechene,
2002; Adato et al., 2000). A similar Brazilian survey
demonstrates
that Bolsa Família has a positive impact on women’s reports
that
they are the sole decision-makers in several areas of household
life,
including contraception and children’s school attendance, but
these results hold only among urban households (De Brauw
et al., 2014; also see Soares & Silva, 2010).4 Qualitative
researchers
find evidence linking CCTs to female control over family
expenses
(Streuli, 2012a; Morton, 2013; Adato et al., 2000; Adato &
Roopnaraine, 2010), men’s endorsement of women’s spending
power
(Maldonado, Nájera, & Segovia, 2006), and women’s expressed
sense
of autonomy (Rego & Pinzani, 2013; Suárez & Libardoni,
2007). The
qualitative research also documents extensive debates inside
house-
holds over which household member can rightfully claim a
share of
the CCT money (Pereira & Ribeiro, 2013; Corboz, 2013), and
researchers describe women’s efforts to divide CCT cash among
chil-
dren and spouses (Morton, 2015b, p. 1298; Pires, 2013; Ahlert,
2013;
for an overview, see Villatoro, 2005). In a critical vein, scholars
note
that CCTs may reinforce stereotypes about women’s obligation
to do
child-rearing labor (Gil-García, 2016; Mariana & Carloto,

2009). CCTs
may also impose time demands on women, increase women’s
work
(Molyneux, 2006; Molyneux, 2009) without asking for ‘‘greater
involvement by men” (Gomes, 2011, p. 78), and fail to create
space
for women’s public involvement (Gomes, 2011, p. 77; Suárez &
Libardoni, 2007, p. 126) or women’s participation in wage labor
(in
contrast to crèche programs; see Lavinas & Nicoll, 2006).
this puzzling result. Among small farmers at Rio Branco and
Maracujá, ‘‘shame”
(vergonha) is a highly prized virtue, a positive quality held to
be characteristic of the
countryside. People who exhibit ‘‘shame” are modest and
collaborate with others.
They are unlikely to report in a survey that they make decisions
fully by themselves.
However, not all small farmers successfully master the display
of shame. Those who
do not demonstrate appropriate shame may have difficulty
securing the approval of
welfare program administrators and complying with the
bureaucratic requirements
necessary to obtain Bolsa Família and maintain the benefit over
time. In rural areas,
then, the refusal to report independent decision-making may be
correlated with
‘‘shame” and hence with an increased likelihood of receiving
Bolsa Família.
354 G.D. Morton / World Development 113 (2019) 352–367
The gender lens has not been yet been focused on CCTs and
women’s asset ownership.5 Although evidence suggests that

CCTs
can increase household ownership of productive assets (Gertler,
Martinez, & Rubio-Codina, 2012)6, little research has been
conducted
on how CCTs affect the gendering of these assets inside the
house-
hold. Beyond the context of CCTs, however, a substantial
literature
considers the gender gap in assets and wealth. Scholars have
demon-
strated female disadvantage in the ownership of varied assets
(Doss
et al., 2014; Deere, 2010; Moser, 2010a; Antonopoulos and
Floro,
2005), particularly land (Agarwal, 1994; Deere and León,
2003).
Asset ownership has been shown to have profound implications
for women’s health, longevity, and resilience in crisis (Deere
and
Doss, 2006). Women’s asset ownership at the time of marriage,
in
some contexts, is associated with variations in the amount that
the
household spends on food, education, alcohol, and tobacco
(Quisumbing & Maluccio, 2003) and with women’s expectations
about household power (Fafchamps & Quisumbing, 2002;
Anderson & Eswaran, 2009). A policy granting assets to women
rather than men can lead to changes in household consumption
and spouses’ time allocation (Wang, 2014). The gender asset
gap,
however, does not look the same in every context; its size varies
across nations and across income groups inside nations (Doss
et al., 2014), depending on labor market conditions, legal
frame-
works, and social norms. Hence the literature includes repeated
calls

for attention to the institutions and practices that determine
owner-
ship at the local level (Deere, 2010; Deere & Doss, 2006;
Moser,
2010b).
Research in this area often intersects with scholarship on the
‘‘asset approach to poverty:” the effort to redefine poverty not
as
a lack of income, but as a lack of assets (Sherraden, 1988;
Sherraden, 1991; Sherraden, 2005; Bailey, 2010; Ssewamala,
Sperber, Zimmerman, & Karimli, 2010; Cramer & Shanks,
2014;
Moser, 2008). Researchers in this area emphasize that assets
have
a transformative effect on long-term life plans in contexts of
impoverishment (Moser, 2010a) and conclude that ‘‘the
accumula-
tion of assets might ultimately be more important for household
wellbeing than pure income measures” (Moser, 2010b, p. 394).
In
its focus on the difficult conversion between short-term income
and long-term assets, this literature overlaps with
anthropological
insights about money. Anthropologists have often observed the
creation of cultural systems that distinguish between the realm
of transient gain and the realm of enduring social reproduction
(Parry & Bloch, 1989, Introduction; Bohannan & Bohannan,
1968),
the latter sometimes being associated with constructed signs of
femininity (Taussig, 1980; Weiner, 1976).
The present article investigates households by considering con-
ditional cash, asset ownership, and gender dynamics in two vil-
lages in northeastern Brazil. The results are ethnographically
specific to a single time and place, but they point toward more

gen-
eral processes. The article argues that positive budget
disruptions
can help households overcome the gender asset gap, and the
article
5 There are some exceptions. For data that demonstrate that
women use Progresa
CCT payments to purchase small livestock, see Rubalcava,
Teruel, & Thomas, 2009. For
evidence that women are more likely than men to invest
Progresa CCT payments in
business and agriculture ventures, see Davis, Handa, Stampini,
& Winters, 2002.
Neither of these articles, however, provides new data to answer
the question of which
family member, inside the household, is considered to be the
owner of a given asset.
For an analysis of a Zambian unconditional cash transfer
associated with a sizable
increase in women’s asset acquisition, see Natali, Handa,
Peterman, Seidenfeld, &
Tembo, 2016.
6 For contrary evidence, see Maluccio, 2010; for a review, see
Kabeer, Piza, & Taylor,
2012, p. 24.
notes the usefulness of lump sums as a tool for creating such
dis-
ruption. After the introduction, Section 2 describes methods.
Sec-
tion 3 details the ownership of assets by gender at the field site,
and Sections 4 and 5 consider the effects of Bolsa Família and
the
Maternity Wage on ownership. Section 6 examines the gifts that
women give with Maternity Wage money. Section 7 discusses
the intra-household processes that underlie the effects observed,

and a final section concludes.
2. Methods
This article is drawn from a fieldwork project designed to
explore the expansion of Brazil’s rural welfare state under the
Workers’ Party. Fieldwork was conducted between 2005 and
2016 in the rural area of Vitória da Conqusita, Bahia, Brazil.
Core
activities took place in 2011–2013. Vitória da Conquista was
headed by a Workers’ Party mayor from 1997 to 2017, making
the municipality an apt site for the study of 21st-century
welfare
policy.7
Fieldwork was primarily based in two neighboring villages, here
called ‘‘Maracujá” and ‘‘Rio Branco.” The villages sit along
dirt
roads, about 100 km from the urban center. Both villages are
com-
posed of small farmers who rely on rainfall to raise livestock
and
cultivate dryland crops like beans, coffee, and manioc, with few
opportunities for regular waged employment. Rio Branco’s 103
inhabitants,8 living in 35 households, mostly belong to an
extended
family that has farmed the area since the 19th century.
Maracujá, by
contrast, has 205 inhabitants in 62 households. Maracujá village
was
founded in 1996, when landless farmers occupied a plantation
by
organizing themselves through Brazil’s Movement of Landless
Rural
Workers, the MST.9 The occupation was successful: the federal
land
reform agency expropriated the plantation, compensated its

owner,
and redistributed the land. Today, at Rio Branco and Maracujá,
almost all households have access to a plot of farmland.
Research was grounded in participant observation, including
interviews (Epstein, 1967; Briggs, 1986; Smith, 2014; Hardesty,
2015). I resided in the villages, living mostly in two families’
house-
holds. I accompanied people as they carried out their everyday
activities: work in the home, work in the fields, hospitable
visits
to friends, parties on the front porch, and appointments at the
wel-
fare office.10
Along with participant observation, I carried out a standardized
census with every household (96 total households)11 between
late
2011 and early 2012. Modeled on the PNAD,12 the census
asked
about each household’s earnings and assets for 2011; it also
inquired
into social program utilization and posed open-ended questions
7 For details on the sweeping changes that the Workers’ Party
has brought to
Brazil’s welfare state since the presidential elections of 2002,
see (Rego & Pinzani,
2013; Ansell, 2014).
8 Unless otherwise specified, all demographics for the villages
are for October 2011.
9 For more on Brazil’s landless movement, see (Morissawa,
2001; Loera, 2010;
Wolford, 2010).
10 All participants provided informed consent. The consent

process was approved as
IRB protocol H07130, University of Chicago.
11 In one household, the respondent declined to participate. All
other households
participated. One household reported a large negative income
for the year because of
the purchase of a number of cattle; I exclude this household
when reporting
information on income in the villages. The excluded household
did not receive either
the Maternity Wage or Bolsa Família. For details on the
exclusion, see (Morton, 2015a,
p. 454). In reporting currency from the survey, I use the
exchange rate of 1.86
Brazilian reais to 1 US dollar, the market rate for January 1st,
2012.
12 The Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD)
is an annual household
survey conducted by IBGE, Brazil’s statistical service.
about work history, migration, and visions of the future.13 The
sur-
vey’s asset module included a checklist of moveable assets,
which
was written with the advice of village leaders.14 Houses and
land
were not included in the survey, since they were rarely bought
and sold in the villages. To assign a market value to the assets
on
the checklist, I spoke with knowledgeable merchants selling
compa-
rable items in the nearby city.

Based on the results of the census, I selected nine households to
participate in ‘‘focus family interviews.” I returned to these
same
households each week and asked about income and expenditures
for the week.15
Interviews and field notes provided the base for analysis. I
made
use of the recursive process characteristic of ethnography,
review-
ing results and refining hypotheses, then having subsequent
con-
versations in the field to check conclusions (Thorne, 2000;
Smith,
2014, p. 419). This checking confirmed that I needed more
infor-
mation about the Maternity Wage. Thus, I carried out a new
research stage in which I interviewed every woman who had
ever
been likely eligible for the Maternity Wage.16 After iterative
rounds
of checking, I presented results to local leaders, municipal
officials,
and social movement organizers. I also consulted with
specialists
on social assistance in the US and Brazil. These overlapping
sources
made it possible to search for alternative interpretations,
thereby
helping to test conclusions.
3. Ownership, assets, and gender in the villages
Small-farming families have to contend with a dry landscape at
Maracujá and Rio Branco. Families reside in small houses,
usually
whitewashed, and in order to facilitate water delivery these

homes
are clustered together near the dirt soccer fields and the
Protestant
and Catholic chapels that form the center of each village. With
rare
13 The survey was conducted by me directly. I lived in the
villages and had personal
relationships with village residents, which might have
influenced responses. In some
cases, respondents might have attempted to deceive me for
personal reasons. In other
cases, they may have been more honest about their asset
ownership, knowing that I
could potentially see assets for myself. Residence in the
villages also made it easier for
me to determine how long each person had been living in the
countryside, which was
an important element in determining eligibility for the
Maternity Wage. I became
familiar with the reasons behind the gap between actual
residence and proof of
residence, a gap that lies at the root of many problems in
obtaining the Maternity
Wage.
14 The module also asked respondents to identify any other
objects of value that
they owned. On the standard checklist, respondents were asked
about the number of
the following items that they owned: cows, pigs, chickens, bee
hives, guinea fowl,
horses, donkeys, mules, sheep, ducks, goats, turkey, other
animals, tables, chairs,
stoves (wood or gas), computers, refrigerators, horse-drawn
carts, cars, pots and pans,
bicycles, motorcycles, beds, televisions, radios, CD players,
DVD players, telephones

(land line or cell), phone antennas, water filters, water tanks,
parabolic TV antennas,
freezers, clothes washing machines, sofas, kitchen shelves,
clothes wardrobes, living-
room shelves, television shelves, chests of drawers, fans,
sewing machines, electric
shower heads, clothes irons, rugs, video games, cameras, water
pumps, and guitars.
The checklist did not include clothes, jewelry, or shoes, because
of the difficulty of
enumerating separate small items and also because informants
reported that these
items were not significant stores of wealth in the local area.
15 The focus family interviews continued for a period ranging
from two to six
months, depending on the household. For details on the methods
used in all of these
surveys and the survey results, see Appendix 1 from (Morton,
2015a).
16 The new stage identified 24 women who had applied for the
Maternity Wage, of
whom 12 received the benefit. This is a small group on which to
base an analysis.
Fortunately, however, the Maternity Wage was a major topic of
conversation among
many people living in the villages at the field site, so I was able
to compare the
opinions and practices of actual Maternity Wage recipients with
the viewpoints
expressed by a larger number of village residents. In total, I
interviewed 49 women
who were likely eligible for the benefit (see Table 2), and I had
informal conversations
about the Maternity Wage with a much more diverse group of
women and men. I
found the views of non-recipients to be highly consistent with

the practices of
recipients. There was widespread agreement that, if a woman
received the Maternity
Wage, she should spend it on a productive agricultural asset.
This consistency
provided some reassurance that the behavior observed among
the small group of
recipients was behavior that corresponded to a widespread norm
at the field site.
exceptions, no irrigation is available. Farmers count on the
region’s
twice-annual rains to grow coffee, manioc, and pineapples for
mar-
ket sale or home consumption, with beans, corn, dryland sugar
cane and garden vegetables grown for home consumption only.
Farmers also raise livestock, particularly cattle, pigs, and
chickens.
Typical family farms range in size from ten to twenty hectares.
Given the arid climate and the distance from an urban market,
most families cannot subsist on farming alone. They combine
income from a variety of sources, including retirement
pensions,
employment in rural schools and health clinics, day labor on
nearby plantations, and cyclical migration to cities or more
distant
plantations. In the 2011 survey conducted as part of this
research,
median annual household income (excluding Bolsa Família and
Materntiy Wage) for the two villages was R$2732 (US$1469)
per
capita.
People at Maracuá and Rio Branco tend to live in households
anchored by a male-female couple, often with their children,
grandchildren, in-laws, siblings, or friends residing in the home

as well.17 Each adult will usually contribute to the household’s
sus-
tenance through several forms of work.18 In the dominant local
model, women specialize in housework, child care, and the
home
production of food for sale, while men devote themselves to
work
in fields. But gender stereotypes about work are not
unbreakable.
Women toil in rows of plantation coffee, team up with friends
to
plant their own bean fields, and travel to the city so they can
labor
in factories. Men watch children and teach classes at school.
Because of the arid climate, farmers cannot count on crops
every year. It becomes especially important to hold assets,
partic-
ularly livestock, that can be sold in a time of need. Beyond
animals,
households own a range of other moveable assets, including
furni-
ture, appliances, and motorcycles. In 2011–2, the average
house-
hold in Maracujá owned moveable assets (including livestock)
valued at 2.69 years’ worth of the household’s annual income;
in
Rio Branco, 1.55 years’ worth of annual income. In each
village,
livestock accounted for nearly half of the value of these assets.
(Insert Figs. 1 and 2 here.)
Livestock, however, do not usually belong to a household. They
belong to a particular person inside the household. In everyday
social interaction between villagers, intra-household ownership
becomes perhaps most salient through the practice of gift-

giving.
It is common for adults to give livestock as a gift to children.
The
act of gifting requires an adult to declare that he or she owns an
animal and then transfer ownership publicly to the child. These
declarations become the topic of neighborly conversation, with
farmers spreading the news of a gift. Thus, which animal
belongs
to which household member is common knowledge. Neighbors
remember that the black spotted cow belongs to the oldest
daugh-
ter in the family next door, or that the duck wandering through
the
backyard is the property of the younger son.
Beyond the case of livestock gifts, however, it is frequently
con-
sidered contrary to the ethos of cooperation for a person to
declare
that certain objects in the household belong to herself or
himself
individually. Respondents explained to me that naming
individual
owners of assets is a sign of family discord. This leads to
difficulties
in interpreting survey responses. Interviewees often expressed
ambivalence about which person inside the household was the
owner of which assets. Some respondents identified more than
17 More than half of households have children living in them,
and more than 75% of
these households with children have a male-female couple
living in them (not always
the child’s parents). For details, see (Morton, 2013) footnote 4
and (Morton, 2015a),
Appendix 1.
18 Child labor is now rare in the villages, beyond chores at

home and occasional help
in the family fields. However, villagers report that child labor
was common on
plantations and in small fields as recently as ten years ago.
Villagers say that child
labor has stopped because of rigorous government enforcement
of laws, along with
the recent appearance of schools and social programs in the
countryside.
Fig. 1. Household income and moveable assets, per capita, Rio
Branco.
Fig. 2. Household income and moveable assets, per capita,
Maracujá.
one owner for an object—as in the case of a male farmer who
told
me that the cattle belonged to him, although he considered that
they also belonged to his wife.
But while respondents express reticence about claiming objects
for themselves, there exist patterns in the responses. These pat-
terns emerge when one considers the person whom a respondent
first mentions in connection with an object. Men are
overwhelm-
ingly, but not exclusively, described first as the owners of
cattle.
Villagers speak of senior men as the owners of the houses, since
it is believed to be the man’s duty to build a house. Although it
is not habitual to describe any individual as the owner of crops
in the field, men are closely associated with cash crops, because

Table 1
Access to benefits, Maracujá and Rio Branco, 2012.
Number of households. . . Maracujá
62
households,
205 people
Rio Branco
35
households,
103 people
Total for
both
villages
Receiving BF 31 20 51
Not receiving, but likely
eligible
8 2 10
% of likely-eligible households
that receive BF
79.5 90.9 83.6
Have received Maternity
Wage
6 6 12
Did not receive, but likely

eligible
25 12 37
% of likely-eligible households
that receive Maternity
Wage
19.4 33.3 24.5
Data from census conducted by author in two villages, 2011–
2012.
men often work in the fields, sell the crops, and pocket the
money.19 On the other hand, in interviews, senior women tend
to
be mentioned first as owners of domestic objects—stoves, beds,
linens, and plates, some of which may have come in the bride’s
trousseau. This distinction between male objects and female
objects
corresponds to the (loosely-enforced) local model in which men
in
the villages work outside the house and women work inside of
it.
As two women explained it to me in conversation one day, the
man owns the house, but the woman owns everything inside it.
In the household, then, both men and women possess assets
that hold value over the long term. These assets hold value for
dif-
ferent reasons, however. Women’s objects hold value because
they
are durable, and these objects become more influential as they
become more durable. A better stove will last longer and hence
extend the influence of the woman who owns it. By contrast,

men’s
objects, in at least some cases, hold value because they are
repro-
ducible. A cow gives birth to more cows, stretching value
forward
across generations. Crops are harvested and the seed is sown
again.
As men’s assets reproduce, they also produce income. Some
calves
can be slaughtered; some of the harvest can be sold. While
women’s objects slowly lose value over time, men’s objects
may
hold value steady or, through the reinvestment of income in the
field or herd, even increase in value (see Weiner, 1976, p. 236).
This is the pattern of asset gendering that Bolsa Família tends
to
reinforce in the villages. The Maternity Wage, however, can
disrupt
the pattern. The following sections describe the two programs’
impact on asset ownership inside households.
4. Bolsa Família and asset purchases
In 2011–12, Bolsa Família was widespread in the villages; 84%
of likely-eligible households were receiving the benefit.20 In
the
51 receiving households, Bolsa Família payments ranged from
R$
38 (US$ 20) to R$ 226 (US$ 122) per household per month,
with a
mean payment of R$ 117 (US$ 63) (SD = 42.7, median = 102).
(Insert
Table 1 here.)
Bolsa Família benefits are delivered on a monthly basis, and the

money is often spent on fast-cycling items like food and school
supplies. However, women report in interviews that they also
strive to set aside at least a portion of the Bolsa Família cash
each
month so they can turn it into a durable asset.
They can achieve this thanks to roving peddlers called mas-
cates.21 The peddlers play a major role in the use of Bolsa
Família
in the countryside. Mascates ply the back roads in heavily-laden
cars
and small trucks, passing through each village once a month.
They
sell furniture, appliances, and other household items. Villagers
report that Bolsa Família has allowed mascates to extend their
reach
into rural areas. Aware that his22 customers now have a source
of
monthly income, a mascate provides credit on a personal basis.
He
delivers a stove, couch, or similar item to a family as soon as
the fam-
ily makes the first payment, then he returns each month to
collect
installments until the debt is paid. Although the poorest women
have difficulty devoting any Bolsa Família money to assets
(Morton, 2013), mascates facilitate purchase by offering
flexible
and renegotiable terms of credit. In exchange for credit and
conve-
nient transportation, mascates charge prices much higher than in
19 Women do sometimes plant crops by themselves or in
conjunction with other
women, but these are typically subsistence rather than cash
crops.
20 I determined likely eligibility for Bolsa Família and the

Maternity Wage by taking
the information that each household reported to me on the
census survey and
comparing that information to the government’s eligibility
requirements for the
programs. When necessary, I also considered further
information from the household,
such as length of residence in the countryside.
21 The name mascate comes from the city of Muscat, in Oman,
which since ancient
times has served as a commercial emporium.
22 At Maracujá and Rio Branco, mascates are overwhelmingly
men.
the city—typically double, according to a merchant I
interviewed in
2012. Despite prices, the mascate system has led to a rural
expansion
in durable goods, from metal pots and blenders to couches and
televisions.
Women plan these purchases well in advance. They often speak
about the objects they aim to acquire with Bolsa Família:
perhaps a
bed for a child, then, once it is paid off, a couch, then a
television.
Dona Marlene recalled the history of the items she had bought,
one
after the other, in a chain of installment payments stretching
over
years.
23
‘‘a
no
m
ac

m
Right now just recently I
bought this stove with the
Bolsa Família money. [. . .] I
bought a sieve [. . .] I
bought the ceramic tiles for
this house. I made a
monthly credit agreement
for fifty reais. So I would
pay the fifty reais for the
credit payment on the tiles.
Then, after I finished the
tiles of this kitchen – [. . .]
Then I bought – that
kitchen cabinet there, look
at it.
From an anthropological perspective,
ccounting models” rather than ‘‘mental
t, in fact, the minds of my interlocutor
odels) of their action and the reasons beh
counting” is well established in the lite
ental accounting, see Thaler, 1990 and K
Agora mesmo esses dias eu
comprei esse fogão com o
dinheiro da Bolsa Família.
[. . .] Eu comprei peneira. [. . .]
Eu comprei a cerâmica dessa
casa. Aí eu fiz uma prestação
de cinquenta reais. Aí eu
pagava os cinquenta reais da
prestação da cerâmica. Aí,
depois que eu terminei a
cerâmica dessa cozinha—[. . .]
Aí eu comprei-- esse armário
aí, Ó.
In the villages, some Bosla Família beneficiaries describe a

charac-
teristic ‘‘mental accounting” practice that they follow in order
to
budget the benefit money.23 First they decide on an amount
they
can devote to assets each month. Then they commit to credit
with
a mascate (or sometimes a store) for this amount. Finally, after
the
monthly asset money has been spent, the remaining money is
avail-
able to buy transitory items, like food.
Martina used this practice to spend fifty reais per month on
household assets. Martina received a little more than R$100 in
Bolsa Família each month. She recounted the reasoning that she
used to allocate this money.
it might be preferable to speak about
accounting,” since what I observe here is
s, but rather their own descriptions (or
ind it. However, because the term ‘‘mental
rature, I follow common usage here. On
och & Nafziger, 2016.
2
Fa
fro
ot
Bu
els
th
in
sp

du
fie
th
ho
co
m
ad
fo
ab
re
sit
to
ex
an
–
hu
358 G.D. Morton / World Developm
Bolsa Família isn’t enough for
you to buy things, only if
you put together money
from several months, you
know? [. . .] I myself, I
always buy something like
that, something that costs
around fifty reais. Because
then you’ve got—I’m going
to make the monthly credit
payment, and I’ll have
another fifty left over. So I
always buy like that, on
credit, and I pay and pay.
Every month that I get
Bolsa Família, I go right
there and make the credit
payment.

4 It is especially striking that women ma
mília on durables rather than food, sinc
m cash transfer programs in other nation
her nations, see Adato et al., 2000, p. xi
dgeting practices in northeastern Braz
ewhere because of specific expectation
at men should take on the responsibility o
the poorest households at Maracujá and
end all of the benefit money on food,
rables; see a longer discussion in (Morto
ld site mentioned the following worry, i
at men might contribute less money to
usehold received Bolsa Família or the Ma
uld conceivably ‘‘crowd out” men’s spend
embers of the household. This concern m
amant views about the importance of no
od, which was the man’s paradigmatic r
out the changes in men’s spending patte
ceive benefits. However, it is worth notin
e and elsewhere, suggests that Bolsa Fam
devote increased resources to self-empl
ample, in one household that I accompan
d a husband both told me with great enth
how Bolsa Família covered some basic
sband to devote time to improving the f
A Bolsa Família não dá para
você comprar, só se você for
juntando várias meses, né?
[. . .] Eu mesma, eu sempre
compro uma coisa assim, no
valor de cinquenta reais. Que
aí vai-- eu vou pagar a
prestação, vai me sobrar mais
de cinquenta. Então, sempre
eu compro assim, a prestação,
e vou pagando. Todo mês que

eu recebo Bolsa Família, eu já
vou lá e pago a prestação.
As beneficiaries determine the amount of Bolsa Família they
will
devote to household assets, conflict can emerge between men
and
women. Providing food for the household is widely described as
a
key masculine duty; once a man has managed to ‘‘put food
inside
the house” (botar comida dentro de casa), a woman can prepare
it
for consumption (Morton, 2013). Men are accustomed to
worrying
about food. When a woman spends Bolsa Família on food, she
con-
tributes toward the main masculine task. On the other hand,
when
she buys assets, she obligates men to find another way to feed
the
household. This food-versus-assets conflict – rather than
disputes
over men’s purported luxury spending – is the most visible
Bolsa
Família argument inside households at the field site.24 A
woman
interviewed by Suárez and Libardoni, elsewhere in Brazil,
described
the conflict:
My husband doesn’t give
anything for inside the
house. According to him,
the Bolsa money is just to
buy food, but I don’t think
so. I buy other things. I
invest in the house. I

decide. (2007, p. 145).
Meu marido não dá nada para
dentro de casa. Para ele o
dinheiro do Bolsa é só para
comprar alimentos, mas eu
não acho. Compro outras
coisas. Invisto na casa. Eu
decido. (2007, p. 145).
ke an effort to prioritize spending Bolsa
e this stands in contrast to observations
s (for examples of such observations from
ii and van den Bold et al., 2013, p. 14).
il may differ from budgeting practices
s, inside northeastern Brazilian families,
f providing food. (It should be noted that
Rio Branco, it is sometimes necessary to
with none left over for the purchase of
n, 2013).) Although no respondent at the
t is possible that women were concerned
wards shared household expenses if the
ternity Wage. In other words, benefit cash
ing on goods that have importance other
ight explain why women often expressed
t spending the entire benefit amount on
esponsibility. I lack detailed information
rns that actually occur once households
g that ethnographic evidence, at the field
ília can encourage both men and women
oyment ventures (Morton, in press). For
ied every week, at Maracujá village, a wife
usiasm – and separately from each other
household expenses and freed up the
amily’s shared field.
At Maracujá, Francisca spoke similarly.
ent 113 (2019) 352–367

2
to
Th
ve
alt
of
fo
sh
ca
of
Men don’t know how to
manage money, like this
one here [. . .] He wants to
go shopping right away,
buy beans and rice [. . .] The
woman thinks about
buying some sandals.
5 At Maracujá and Rio Branco, it is rare for
buy seeds, livestock, tools, or other agricu
eir farms are too small, too unprofitable
ndors to extend them credit. Government
hough often accompanied by complicated
using credit, farmers tend to apply the pr
r the next year. They also engage in a varie
arecropping (in various forms) and gado
ttle to another farmer to be raised, with
fspring.
O homem não sabe
administrar o dinheiro, tipo
esse [. . .] Ele quer logo fazer
compras, comprar feijão e
arroz [. . .] A mulher já pensa
de comprar umas sandálias.
Another time, Nalta, at Rio Branco, referred to this tension.
Ronaldo [her husband]

always tells me that. ‘‘How
does this happen? You’ve
got Bolsa Família—they,
they say it’s for food. You
keep putting it towards
installment payments.”
Ronaldo [esposo] sempre me
fala isso. ‘‘Como é que você
tem o Bolsa Família, já, já fala
que é para alimentar. Você
fica colocando em prestação.”
These debates between spouses point towards a larger dilemma.
At
Maracujá and Rio Branco, where small-farming families earn
mod-
est incomes at best, household members face needs that make it
difficult to save. Bolsa Família arrives every month, and thus it
frames the saving challenge in a particular way. It turns the
prob-
lem of saving into the problem of how to put money together.
Bene-
ficiaries must figure out how to convert regular payments into a
usefully large sum (Collins, Morduch, Rutherford, & Ruthven,
2009, Ch. 4) with which to buy an asset.
Mascates offer a solution to this problem. Through instant
delivery of a consumer good and follow-up installment
payments,
mascates allow women to pre-commit to a saving plan. This
com-
mitment is manifested in a characteristic mental accounting
prac-
tice, with women first setting aside a portion of their Bolsa
Família
for the asset and then spending the rest on food and other transi-
tory objects. Women use such practices to plan asset purchases

years in advance.
It is important to note that the mascate system has a gendered
orientation. Mascates do not sell livestock or seeds for crops;25
they offer items that conform to expectations about what women
should own. Thus, saving practices associated with Bolsa
Família
are savings practices that correspond, as Francisca puts it, to
‘‘how
a woman thinks,” or, in other words, to pre-existing gender
roles.
Bolsa Família helps women at Maracujá and Rio Branco to plan
for
and acquire the durable assets that family members, neighbors,
and merchants all expect women to strive toward.
5. The Maternity Wage and disruptive assets
Since 1923, Brazil’s legal system has included provisions
allow-
ing certain formal-sector workers to receive maternity payments
(Neiverth and Mandalozzo, 2009; for overviews of maternity
ben-
efits in developing countries, see Fallon, Mazar, & Swiss, 2017;
any of the small farmers, men or women,
ltural products on credit from merchants.
, and too risk-prone for most commercial
credit programs are sometimes available,
and time-consuming paperwork. Instead
oceeds from one harvest to improvements
ty of profit-sharing arrangements, such as
de sociedade, in which one farmer ‘‘lends”
the second farmer keeping some of the

Nandiet al., 2016). The aim is to enable women to remain out of
work in the months following pregnancy. In the 1988
Constitution,
rural workers were granted this right (Article 7, Section 18).
Because small family farmers are self-employed, Law 8861 of
March 25, 1994 established that the federal government would
take the employer’s place and provide these farmers with the
Maternity Wage (Salário Maternidade), four months of
minimum
wage delivered in a lump sum.
In order to receive this money, applicants must prove they are
small family farmers. A local administrator explained to me in
2012 that during the program’s first years, federal officials
accepted many forms of proof but that, faced with
overwhelming
demand, officials subsequently became more demanding. A
rural
advocate showed me a list of 21 documents that a woman might
be asked to provide for the Maternity Wage application,
including
vaccination records and receipts demonstrating the purchase of
farm tools or seeds at least nine months before the baby’s birth.
The process becomes especially onerous for women living far
from
the city. At Maracujá and Rio Branco, where mail services are
nonexistent and phones unreliable, applicants sometimes spend
days traveling to appointments in the city to follow their
applica-
tions. Fig. 3 shows the situation at a national level: after the
initial
expansion of the program, access was restricted. Locally, in
2011–

12 at Maracujá and Rio Branco, 24.5% of the women who were
likely eligible for the Maternity Wage actually received it (See
Table 2). In general, residents of the villages say that they
consider
the program to be ‘‘like a lottery” (no sorteio). (Insert Fig. 3
here.)26
The Maternity Wage resembles a lottery not only because its
outcome seems uncertain, but also because it might deliver a
large
sum of money all at once. In 2011, the standard Maternity Wage
value was R$2180 (US$1172), equal to nearly ten months of the
vil-
lages’ per capita median income.27 The 2011–12 survey
measured
the value of assets owned by both (a) households that had
received
the Maternity Wage and (b) households that had not received
the
Maternity Wage, but were likely eligible. As Table 2 shows,
Mater-
nity Wage beneficiaries had, on average, higher per-capita
incomes
and more assets. The mean value of livestock owned was 66%
higher
for Maternity Wage beneficiaries than for non-beneficiaries who
were likely eligible. The mean value of household goods was
25%
higher. This difference may indicate that the Maternity Wage
had
an effect on asset accumulation, especially livestock. However,
the
data are suggestive rather than conclusive: most differences are
not significant in a two-tailed t-test.28 More importantly, since
the
data are cross-sectional, the direction of causation is unclear. It

might be the case that owning more assets makes a household
more
likely to obtain the Maternity Wage, rather than the reverse.29
26 Data for Fig. 5 from Ministério da Previdência Social (n.d.a)
and Ministério da
Previdência Social (n.d.b). ‘‘INSS” is the Instituto Nacional de
Seguro Social, Brazil’s
social security system. Most formal-sector employees can
request the Maternity
Wage from their employer, but small family farmers receive it
through INSS.
27 The Maternity Wage value is set at four months’ worth of the
government-
mandated minimum wage. Because most farmers at Maracujá
and Rio Branco earn
less than the minimum wage per capita, the Maternity Wage is
typically worth more
than four months of income for them.
28 Furthermore, the results are driven by households at
Maracujá; among house-
holds at Rio Branco, the difference between assets owned by
Maternity Wage
recipients and non-recipients is negligible.
29 Since households with more assets tend to be more
influential in the villages and
have better connections with bureaucratic systems, it seems
likely that these
households would be more likely to apply for the Maternity
Wage. However,
households that made failed applications for the Maternity
Wage turn out to own
assets similar to the assets owned by households that did not
apply (to see this,
compare columns B and C). This offers some reassurance that
the difference between
applicants and non-applicants is not the only factor driving the

increase in asset
values associated with the Maternity Wage. Nonetheless, the
causation problem is not
solved: households that start with more assets might still be
more likely to succeed in
their applications for the Maternity Wage.
Although the research approach employed here does not iden-
tify causation, it does provide insight into the process through
which the Maternity Wage is used inside households. When I
inter-
viewed women who received the Maternity Wage, they often
told
me that their first step was to spend money on short-term
expenses like food. Kara, for example, described her response
to
the Maternity Wage as follows.
3
re
fam
m
31
re
ad
an
re
in
(h
fam
32
M
eq
sm
33

be
Man, when I got the money, I
was really in need! So I
bought some things, I
bought some clothes for
her [Kara’s baby daughter]
– she was in need, too. [. . .]
I did some of that food
shopping.
0 Lui and Molina (2013, pp. 144–6) offer
sidents in a rural Amazonian community
ilies become pregnant in order to obt
oney in house construction and other ven
One of these women was employed by
ceived the Maternity Wage benefit throu
ministered differently from the Maternity
d her household were not included in Ta
ported spending the Maternity Wage on
come, the money was used as follows: (ho
ousehold 2) clothes, diapers, and blanke
ily in the rural workers union, and (hou
During a return visit in 2016, I learn
aracujá had obtained the Maternity Wag
uipment so that she and her husband c
all business selling snacks.
In two cases, it was a male responden
en purchased with the money.
Moço, quando eu recebi o
dinheiro, eu estava bem
precisando! Aí eu comprei
umas coisas, comprei umas

roupas para ela—também
estava precisando. [. . .] Fiz
umas feiras aí.
But food shopping did not exhaust the Maternity Wage money.
With the rest of the cash, Kara turned towards assets: ‘‘I bought
the little pig for her [the baby daughter]. And—the money ran
out.”
The Maternity Wage creates a disruptive positive shock to
household budgets. Women, faced with the imperative of
handling
this lump sum, turn to a familiar strategy. They do what male
farmers do with the earnings from an abundant cash crop
harvest.
They acquire assets, like livestock and new crops, that will
gener-
ate new income in the future.30 Of the eleven women in the
villages
who described to me the purchases they made with the
Maternity
Wage, eight bought a source of future income.31 Six of these
eight
women spent the money on livestock (including cattle, pigs, and
donkeys), while two paid for help preparing a field with
crops.32 I
also conducted interviews with families who did not receive the
Maternity Wage. In twelve of these families, a respondent
described
to me what would have happened to the money if the woman
had
obtained the benefit.33 Nine of the twelve reported that the
money
would have gone to purchase livestock. By contrast, in
interviews
about Bolsa Família, it was very uncommon to hear Bolsa
Família

recipients talk about using the monthly cash transfer to purchase
an income-generating asset. The Maternity Wage, not Bolsa
Família,
is the funding source that allows women to acquire the
reproducible
assets that usually belong to men.
Women were explicit about the hope that these assets would
turn into long-term sources of income. Francesca, who used the
Maternity Wage to buy both a television and a calf, explained
her second purchase in financial terms. ‘‘You’ve got to invest,”
she counseled, ‘‘in an object that gives profit.” (Tem que
investir
em um objeto que dá lucro.) Marisol did not obtain the
Maternity
Wage, but if she had, she said, she would have spent the money
on an income-generating asset.
a qualitative account of debates among
. The residents argue over whether or not
ain the Maternity Wage and invest the
tures.
the municipality as a health worker and
gh her employer. Because this benefit is
Wage given to small family farmers, she
bles 1 and 2. In the three households that
something other than a source of future
usehold 1) medical expenses for the child,
ts for the child and membership for the
sehold 3) a house.
ed that after 2013, another woman at
e. She used the money to buy restaurant
ould convert an abandoned house into a
t who described to me what would have

0
100000
200000
300000
400000
500000
600000
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Rural
Fig. 3. Number of rural Maternity Wage benefits granted per
year through INSS, 1990–2014, Brazil.
Table 2
Assets in households eligible for the Maternity Wage. Maracujá
and Rio Branco combined, 2012.
A: Households that
received Maternity
Wage
B: Households that did not receive
Maternity Wage but were likely
eligible
C: Households that did not receive

Maternity Wage but were likely eligible
and applied*
Number of households 12 37 12
Total moveable assets owned by household, mean per-
capita value including livestock, household goods, and
other goods
(in Brazilian reais; SD in parentheses)
6497
(5301)
3920
(4140)
3737
(2585)
Livestock owned by household, mean per-capita value
3820
(3286)
2068
(3377)
1573
(1631)
Household goods owned by household, mean per-capita
value
1795

(568)y
1441
(700)y
1561
(727)
Annual income per capita
3865
(2710)
2409
(1956)
2245
(1137)
Data from census conducted by author in two villages, 2011–
2012.
* Column C is a subset of Column B. All households in column
C are also included in Column B.
y For household goods, the difference between column A and
column B is significant at the 10% level.
Using part of it, I would have
bought something for her
[Marisol’s daughter] [. . .]
And with the other part I
would have bought a thing
that would give an income
[. . .] A calf [. . .] It’ll grow,

produce.
Usando uma parte, comprava
uma coisa para ela [. . .] e
outra parte comprava uma
coisa que ia dar renda [. . .]
Bezerro [. . .] Vai crescer,
produzir.
Nalta described her plans for the Maternity Wage similarly.
For his [her son’s] future, like
that. Like that. For example,
I would have bought, like,
a—a female calf, something
like, to—leave it there
growing to yield
something, you know? [. . .]
To give income, like that,
you know? [. . .] [Leave the
calf] producing there so
that afterwards it will give
a good little bit of money.
Futuro dele, assim. Assim. Por
exemplo, comprava, assim,
um—uma novilha, assim, uma
coisa assim, para-- Deixar
criando lá para render, né?
[. . .] Dar renda assim, né? [. . .]
Rendendo ali para depois dar
um dinheirinho bom.
Income-generating assets tend to be more expensive than the
household durable goods that are usually stereotyped as
feminine
assets in the villages. An average-size cow, for example, sold
for R
$1440 (US$783) in 2011, while a gas stove cost R$260
(US$141).
Moreover, because income-generating assets are reproducible,

they
may hold value for longer. Lara drew a contrast between
income-
generating assets, like cattle, and a typical asset that women
pur-
chased with Bolsa Família: furniture.
L: If [the Maternity Wage]
were a really good little bit
of money, enough to buy
something, I’d spend it on
cows, like that [. . .] Because
you see how it is. [You see]
that sometimes people go
running [to buy items], you
know. They buy furniture,
for inside the house. A sofa.
Duff: Mm hm.
L: And you see that that’s a
useful thing. But in a short
time, you can see that that
[furniture] is there all
L: Se fosse um dinheirinho
bom mesmo, que dasse para
comprar, é aplicar em vacas,
assim [. . .] Que você vê. Que
às vezes eles correm, no caso.
Eles compram moveis, para
dentro de casa. Um sofá.
D: Mm hm.
L: Mas você vê que é uma
coisa que serve. Mas com
pouco tempo, você está vendo
que está ali estragado. Agora,
se Deus dá um-- uma boa
sorte da gente comprar um
bichinho, botar lá na manga—

3
M
do
3
m
eq
co
di
tru
th
ha
ruined. [. . .] Now, if God
gives us good—good luck
for us to buy a little animal,
put it out there in the
pasture—
D: Mm hm—
L: --tomorrow or the next
day, in a time of need, you
have something that you
can—lay hold of, you
know? [. . .] Yeah, an object
inside the house, you can’t
do that.
D: Mm hm.
L: You need something
right here. ‘‘I’m going to sell
this cow because I’m in
need,” you know?

4 Fields are similarly risky: in one of the t
aternity Wage on planting a field, respond
ne well.
5 Because Maracujá is a village affiliat
ovement, it is plausible that residents ar
uality as a goal. The research design att
mparing Maracujá with Rio Branco, a vill
fferences in asset gendering were observe
e that Rio Branco’s residents were clearly
eir neighbors at Maracujá. Recipients’ a
ve been impacted by the specific politica
D: Mm hm.
L: --amanhã ou depois, numa
precisão, você tem como
você—pegar, né? [. . .] Mm—
um objeto dentro de casa,
você não pode fazer isso.
D: Mm hm.
L: Você está precisando aqui,
‘‘Eu vou vender essa vaca
porque estou precisando,”
né?
36 In every case where I recorded the final destination of
livestock purchased with
Maternity Wage money, the animal was ultimately given as a
gift to a son or daughter
of the woman who had received the payment. Note, however,
that intra-household
ownership is not a straightforward attribution. Donors seemed
to continue to exercise
considerable influence over the use of the gifted animals. To
cite only one example, a
woman at Maracujá received the Maternity Wage twice and
purchased cattle for her
children. Some of these cattle were later sold to pay for the
woman’s brother’s trip to

find work in a major city. The woman reported to me that
eventually she hoped to sell
the children’s remaining cattle in order to build a house. This
would be, she said, ‘‘a
house for them” (uma casa para eles.) In this case, as elsewhere,
donors and their
family members seem to play an important role in determining
when to sell an
animal that belongs to a child and how to use the resulting
money. The money may be
used for the children’s benefit, but the donor seems to have
strong influence over how
this takes place.
37 The authority that comes from having given away an asset
(‘‘donor’s authority”) is
clearly not the same as the authority that comes from owning
that asset (‘‘owner’s
authority.”) It might be argued that the latter is a stronger form
of empowerment
than the former. More broadly, there are good reasons to be
suspicious of vague
Lara concluded that cattle were a better store of value—and
hence a
better use for the Maternity Wage. Cattle were not a better store
of
value because they were necessarily less risky. In the villages,
cattle
died frequently from disease, snakebite, predators, and
drought.34
Rather, cattle stored value well because, if the risk paid off and
the
animals flourished, they could reproduce themselves and start a
herd that would last longer than a chair or sofa.
Bolsa Família frames the saving challenge as the problem of

how
to put money together, but the Maternity Wage creates the
opposite
kind of saving challenge. It presents women with the problem of
how to smooth money over time, stretching out a large sum so
that
it continues to generate income in the future. To solve this
smooth-
ing problem, women disturb the existing gendering of assets.35
Maternity Wage payments have an intrinsically disruptive
effect because of their large size and their unpredictable nature.
Bolsa Família, by virtue of its monthly regularity, makes it
possible
for mascates to develop a credit and saving system, a system
based
on the knowledge that women receive income every month.
Bolsa
Família inspires women to plan their purchases far in advance,
and
the regular nature of this system and these plans makes them
con-
ducive to reproducing the regular gendered asset order. The
Mater-
nity Wage, however, is not so regular. It comes not as the
culmination of long-expected plans, but as the beginning of new
ones.
6. Gift-giving and the Maternity Wage
Although the Maternity Wage allows women to become the
owners of income-generating assets, oftentimes women do not
remain owners for long. Commonly, at Maracujá and Rio
Branco,
women give livestock to their children. Thus, the Maternity
Wage

wo households that reported spending the
ents bitterly told me that the field had no
ed with the MST, a left-wing landless
e unusually disposed to embrace gender
empted to account for this possibility by
age that is not connected to the MST. Few
d between the two villages. However, it is
influenced by the progressive example o
ttitudes towards assets and gender may
l context.
claims that a woman’s status is increased in the absence of
concrete changes in power
relations (see an important discussion in Molyneux, 2006, p.
439). It is worth noting,
though, that at the field site, intra-household ownership is
almost entirely non-
juridical, since village residents rarely have recourse to the
legal system to manage
t
f
frequently goes to purchase assets that end up in the hands not
of a
beneficiary, but of her daughters and sons.36
This gifting practice might seem to defeat any effort to use the
Maternity Wage to build up women’s assets. After all, assets
that a
woman gives away do not have the same status as assets that a
woman herself owns.37 Anthropological studies of gift
exchange,
however, have demonstrated how gift-givers can retain authority
after the gift leaves their hands, thus ‘‘keeping while giving”
(Mauss, 1967; Sahlins, 1972, Ch. 5; Weiner, 1976). At Maracujá

and Rio Branco, women’s influence can persist even when
women’s
ownership has been transferred. By giving livestock to one or
another
child, a woman helps determine which child, in the future, will
receive medical treatment or have post-secondary education
paid
for – both of these being commonly-discussed uses for a child’s
ani-
mal wealth.38
Women, as they grant such gifts, also secure their own reputa-
tions.39 Years later, family members recall which donor gave
which
animal to whom. These recollections do not end with the
animal’s
slaughter or sale. In everyday conversation, children and
relatives
will trace out animal genealogies, remembering (as in one case I
wit-
nessed) that a particular cow is the granddaughter of a cow
bought
with a woman’s Maternity Wage money.
Bolsa Família money, like Maternity Wage money, can be spent
on items destined for specific children. Women commonly use
Bolsa Família to buy clothes for one child and school supplies
for
another. However, family members do not speak of or remember
these items as gifts. They are simply necessities. It is the
Maternity
Wage, rather than Bolsa Família, that enables women to carry
out
acts of recognized generosity and thus to occupy an enduring
place
in the history of the household’s wealth.

The importance of this gift-giving network was driven home to
me when I listened to Dona Eva, at Rio Branco, describe what
she
had done with the Maternity Wage that she received many years
prior.
titles to livestock. Where legal institutions are not the relevant
sources of authority,
collective memory (such as the recollection of who gifted a
particular animal) may be
especially relevant in determining power relations.
38 Both girls and boys were recipients of livestock gifts, and I
did not detect a pattern
of preference for one gender in child ownership.
39 Mothers’ livestock gifts could be interpreted as a mechanism
for retaining some
authority over assets while avoiding the opprobrium that
attaches to a violation of
gender norms. By gifting a cow or a goat to her child, a mother
insures that she is not
herself the owner of an asset that is locally considered to be
masculine. At the same
time, she continues to wield long-term influence over the
disposal of that asset. No-
one at the field site described this logic to me explicitly, and I
have no other direct
indications that it is an important determinant of people’s
actions, but it serves as a
strong hypothesis; thanks are offered to an anonymous reviewer
for suggesting it.
Woman receives
Bolsa Família
(monthly money)

Ins�tu�onal
mechanism
Mascate ins�tu�on
exists to offer credit for
household assets
Predictability
of money
Mental accoun�ng
mechanism
Recipient considers
money to be
“reliable”
Result
Money spent on
household assets
Woman receives
Maternity Wage
(lump-sum money)
Unpredictability
of money
No ins�tu�on; woman
uses saving prac�ce
associated with men
Recipient considers
money to be “risky”

Money spent on
income-
genera�ng assets
Small, regular
payments
Large, one-
�me payment
Fig. 4. Processes that explain different uses of monthly money
and lump-sum money.
4
th
in
I took 200 reais, and I gave it
to Andres [her husband] to
buy a calf for Jeremias. [. . .]
Still today, there are things
from this money [. . .] It’s a
cow today. She has already
given birth about four
times. It’s just that we sold
the offspring [. . .] Andres
sold them to take care of
[Jeremias’s] teeth. It went
for Jeremias. I gave it to
him.
0 Fafchamps & Quisumbing, 2002 is an ex
e value of gifts received inside Ethiopian
heritance and gifts at the time of marriag

Peguei 200 reais, e dei a
Andres para comprar um
bezerro para Jeremias [. . .]
Até hoje, tem desse dinheiro
[. . .] É uma vaca hoje. Ela já
pariu umas quatro vezes. Só
que vendeu [. . .] Andres
vendeu para cuidar dos
dentes dele.
Ficou para Jeremias. Eu dei
para ele.
Dona Eva emphasized that the gift of the cow came from her: I
gave
it to him. She concluded by noting that in the future, she might
make a similar gift to her husband. ‘‘If Andres is in need,” she
told
me, ‘‘I’ll give to him.” (Se Andres tiver precisão, eu dou para
ele.)
The Maternity Wage had helped Dona Eva make herself into the
kind of person who could say that she gave gifts to her son, that
she helped him get to a dentist, and that she envisioned herself
as
a generous donor to her husband.
In such cases, the gendering of assets comes to involve more
than the ownership of an object. Women can use an asset to
place
themselves at the center of a web of exchanges. Through mecha-
nisms like these, Maternity Wage recipients accrue honor and
loy-
alty from others, accumulating ‘‘wealth in people” (Guyer,
1993;
see Sahlins 1972 on the ‘‘sociology of primitive exchange”). In
gen-
eral, empirical studies of asset gendering will be enriched by
close

attention to these dynamics that extend beyond ownership. This
might, in the future, mean that researchers ask detailed
questions
about which assets are owned by children (and why) and that
researchers chart out a history of recent gifts, with their givers
and receivers.40
At Maracujá and Rio Branco, gifts are accompanied by a form
of
mental accounting that marks the Maternity Wage as a different
kind of payment than Bolsa Família. Women tend to account for
Bolsa Família (as discussed above) by setting aside a standard
ample of a study that catalogues in detail
rural households, although the focus is on
e.
sum of money each month to deveote to installments on a
durable
good, such as a mattress or a stove. In contrast, women account
for
their Maternity Wage purchases as intermediate stores of value.
They say they do not know what the money will ultimately
accom-
plish. Kara, who used the Maternity Wage to buy a pig, gave the
pig
to her daughter. Kara described the pig’s usefulness in open-
ended
terms.
From that money afterwards
we were going to buy
something for her, you
know?
Desse dinheiro depois a gente
ia comprar uma coisa para
ela, ne?
Saralinda spoke similarly about the Maternity Wage that she
hoped

to receive.
Then I plan to buy a cow, and,
and, and buy for Venâncio’s
[her son’s] future, you
know? To be able to buy
something for him in the
future.
Aí eu planejo comprar vaca, e,
e, e, comprar para o futuro de
Venâncio, né? Para
futuramente comprar alguma
coisa para ele.
Saralinda employed a word – future – that plays a prominent
role in
women’s discussions of the Maternity Wage. While Bolsa
Família
leads to specific plans to obtain specific objects, the Maternity
Wage
opens the possibility of a more general, unanticipated future.
Women are taking a risk, investing with the hope that tomorrow
they will be able to purchase something better than what they
could use the money to purchase today. The sense of openness
was expressed by Marília as she described her potential goal for
the Maternity Wage.
My plans, if I got the money,
was to buy at least a little
calf and leave it for him
[her son], with his luck.
Because he’s a child [. . .] So
my plan was to buy
something to leave in the
Meus planos, se eu recebesse
o dinheiro, era eu comprar
pelo menos uma bezerrinha e
deixar na sorte dele. Porque
ele está criança. [. . .] Então

meu plano era de eu comprar
alguma coisa para deixar no
future. For him to buy what
he needs. [. . .] Leave
something, so that in the
future, he won’t– won’t
throw it in my face that I
spent it uselessly, you
know? Or that I didn’t leave
anything for him. [. . .] So
that when he grows up, he
can say this, ‘‘Hey, my mom
got the Maternity Wage,
and she didn’t even know
what she was
accomplishing with it.”
futuro. Para ele comprar o que
ele precisa. [. . .] Deixar
alguma coisa, e para que no
futuro, ele não—não jogue na
minha cara que gastei à toa,
né? Ou eu não deixei nada
para ele [. . .] Então para
quando ele crescer, ele dizer
assim, ‘‘Ó, minha mãe pegou
no Salário Maternidade, e não
soube o que fez.”
41 See also Landsberger 1966. Thaler argues as follows: ‘‘[T]he
MPC [marginal
propensity to consume] out of windfall gains depends on the
size of the gains. Small
gains, relative to income, will be coded as current income, and

spent. Larger gains will
enter the assets account, where the MPC is lower (though still
higher than the annuity
value). The source of a change in wealth can also matter. Some
windfalls, such as
unrealized capital gains, are naturally treated as changes in the
assets account.
Others, such as the sale of a security, could be treated as
income [. . .] Even cash
receipts can enter the assets account if the inflow is in a large
enough lump, and not
considered regular income” (Thaler 1990, pp. 197–8).
In Marília’s accounting, she cannot know for sure what will
happen
to her Maternity Wage cash. This uncertainty is a sign of
changed
gender relations. Like a man who invests in cattle, she now
faces
the danger and the responsibility that comes with making a
risky,
large-sized purchase, one that others in the future may judge to
be either useless or a great accomplishment. The money points
towards the achievement of unforeseeable outcomes,
‘‘something
to leave in the future.” Just as the Maternity Wage is disruptive
in
the present, it also holds out the possibility of disrupting the
future,
leading women to imagine a moment beyond their current
capacity
to predict.
7. Discussion: Processes that lead to different asset outcomes
Women at Maracujá and Rio Branco use monthly social assis-
tance to buy durable household goods. These same women use

lump-sum social assistance to buy agricultural assets that can
gen-
erate a flow of income in the future. What processes lead to
these
different results?
Both processes begin with the challenge of saving. Among
households in poverty, a classic problem often arises (Collins
et al., 2009, p. 96): how can the household shield a sum of
money
to save? A household member may solve this problem by pre-
committing to a saving plan (Laibson, 1997). To pre-commit
suc-
cessfully, however, the member may need an institution that
cred-
ibly binds her/him/them to the saving plan.
For Bolsa Família money, mascates serve as such an institution.
Mascates, as we have seen, know that Bolsa Família will arrive
on a
regular basis, and they deliver household goods immediately
and
collect installment payments later. Mascates allow women to
make a credible commitment to turn over part of their future
Bolsa
Família money.
With the Maternity Wage, however, the situation is different.
The Maternity Wage is a sizeable sum that must be spread out.
Before the benefit arrives, women cannot make a pre-
commitment with the mascate to take out credit and spend the
sum in advance, because the Maternity Wage is so
unpredictable;
given the high rejection rates, the mascate does not have any
assurance that the money will actually come. When women seek
an instrument to save this sum, they turn towards the practice

that
men use to invest windfall profits: purchasing agricultural
assets.
Thus, one of the important differences between Bolsa Família
and
the Maternity Wage involves the different institutions that
women
use to commit to saving. Because of the unpredictable nature of
the
Maternity Wage, the existing institutions in rural Brazil do not
allow women to pre-commit before the money arrives. Instead,
women are encouraged to spend the benefit on income-
generating assets.
But why income-generating assets? Why do women purchase
furniture with Bolsa Família and cows with the Maternity
Wage?
To make sense of this distinction, it is helpful to turn towards
the concept of ‘‘mental accounting,” as theorized by behavioral
economists. Thaler (1990) argues that consumers do not act as if
each dollar were fungible with every other. Instead, consumers
tac-
itly separate different streams of money into different mental
accounts, such as a ‘‘current consumption account” for food and
a ‘‘major assets account” for objects of value. Thus, for
example,
an increase in weekly wages may enter the consumption account
and be spent entirely on better food, while a one-time
inheritance
may enter the asset account and get devoted fully to a new
house,
not affecting food consumption at all. Thaler observes that
people
tend to spend a small windfall differently from a large one,
because
people use different habits when accounting for differently-
sized

sums, placing these different sums into different mental
accounts.41
At Maracujá and Rio Branco, women confirm the theory by
clas-
sifying Bolsa Família money into a ‘‘low-risk, small asset”
account,
while they place Maternity Wage money in a ‘‘high-risk, large
asset” account. They offer explicit descriptions of these
different
accounting habits. Women say that they manage Bolsa Família
money by getting into the habit of setting aside a consistent sum
each month. They devote this sum to a visible saving goal: the
household good that the mascate has already delivered.
Beneficia-
ries treat Bolsa Família, in other words, like reliable money. It
is to
be spent, reliably, on the sort of normal, low-risk assets, such as
stoves and tables, that village residents expect women to
purchase.
Women describe an altogether different practice for accounting
for the Maternity Wage. This money is irregular and
unpredictable.
Women say that they use the money to purchase assets that they
understand to be unpredictable as well. They pay for livestock
that
may fall sick and fields that may not bear fruit. They say that it
is
money meant to ‘‘produce,” to make an ‘‘income” or a ‘‘profit.”
They hope that the profit will go to buy ‘‘something” in the
future,
but they do not specify that ‘‘something.” In other words,
women
treat the Maternity Wage like risky money. Just like gambling
win-

nings in other contexts (Thaler, 1990), the Maternity Wage is
not
seen as appropriate for mundane expenditures. It is good for
spending on the sort of high-risk agricultural assets that break
stereotypes and hold out the possibility of changing relations
inside the household.
As the comparison between Bolsa Família and the Maternity
Wage demonstrates, a benefit’s payment schedule can have an
impact on at least two components of the asset accumulation
pro-
cess. The schedule can affect saving institutions and mental
account-
ing. First, differently timed payments promote different sorts of
institutions for solving the saving problem. Second, by timing
pay-
ments, policymakers cue beneficiaries about how to use the
money, whether for safe or risky endeavors, since different pay-
ment schedules activate different kinds of mental accounts. For
households at Maracujá and Rio Branco, thus, monthly cash and
lump sums are simply not the same kind of money, and these
dif-
ferent kinds of money have divergent effects on the stock of
assets
owned by each member of the household. Social benefits can
help
women acquire (feminine-stereotyped) household durables or
43 For information on Jóvenes con Prospera, see ‘‘Acuerdo por
el que se emiten las
Reglas de Operación de PROSPERA Programa de Inclusión
Social, para el ejercicio fiscal
2016,” in Diário Oficial de la Unión, México, December 30,
2015 (http://dof.gob.mx/

nota_detalle.php?codigo=5421756&fecha=30/12/2015).
44 Also note Bolivia’s Bono Juancito Pinto, an unusual example
of a conditional cash
transfer that provides the benefit through a single annual
payment (Aguilar Pacajes,
2014).
45 This topic is also relevant to the microfinance literature,
where scholars
investigate the question of how microfinance clients decide
between buying
productive assets and making other purchases. Scholars have
been attentive to the
gendered dimension of the issue (Schuster, 2015; Kar &
Schuster, 2016; Banerjee,
Duflo, Glennerster, & Kinnan, 2015; Haile, Bock & Folmer,
2012).
46 Thanks for this point are due to Jonas Nahm.
47 Thanks are gratefully given to an anonymous reviewer for
suggesting the notion
of ‘‘serendipity.”
48 It may be especially important to evaluate existing programs
that create savings
accounts for women attached to CCTs. Bolsa Família includes
such accounts, although
women at the field site reported that they rarely used the
accounts to store money.
Also see similar programs in Peru (Meltzer, 2013; De Los Rios,
& Trivelli, 2011) and
Mexico (Chiapa & Prina, 2015).
49 Moser emphasizes (2008, p. 91) that asset-accumulation
policy differs from social
protection policy in that asset-accumulation policy involves
promoting risk. Often,
such a policy will encourage beneficiaries to seek out risk, in a
sustainable and

(masculine-stereotyped) agricultural assets, depending on the
structure of the program.
Are these results particular to northeastern Brazil? Ethnography
works with intrinsically local data, but the data may shed light
on
processes that take place in households beyond the area of
focus.
The article concludes by considering that possibility. (Insert
Fig. 4
here.)
8. Conclusion: Lump sums as a tool for change
Inside a household, social assistance programs do more than
increase income;42 they transform relationships and habits of
mind.
Ethnography traces such changes, which come embedded with
the
money. This article has described two mechanisms – institutions
and mental accounting – that lead the recipients of social
assistance
to convert unpredictable lump sums into income-generating
assets.
These mechanisms may be relevant outside of northeastern
Brazil.
The mental-accounting result, in particular, is a good candidate
for
portability, since it conforms to the general prediction, made by
behavioral economists, that agents think of one-time payments
as
resources for risk-taking (Thaler, 1990, pp. 197–8). Effects like
these
open up possibilities for policy. Because of their disruptive
power,

lump sums might be mobilized to reduce the gender asset gap.
Lump sum policies already create positive disruption in other
policy areas. For example, the Earned Income Tax Credit
(EITC) in
the United States provides low-income workers with a single
annual payment; just as with the Maternity Wage, recipients
have
difficulty predicting the payment in advance (Edin, Tach, &
Halpern-Meekin, 2014; Congdon, Kling, & Mullainathan, 2009).
Researchers find that recipients are satisfied with the lump-sum
quality of the payment, using it as a savings device so they can
pur-
chase major assets, like cars, that facilitate upward mobility
(Halpern-Meekin, Edin, Tach, & Sykes, 2015, p. 70). When the
US
government created an option for recipients to obtain the EITC
ahead of time in monthly payments, the option proved
unpopular
(Halpern-Meekin et al., 2015, p. 71). Similar to the EITC, but
set in
low-income nations, ‘‘graduation programs” provide
beneficiaries
with a one-time infusion of assets or cash, along with regular
income support for a two-year period. In an RCT, graduation
pro-
grams increased the value of the productive assets owned by
households (Banerjee et al., 2015; Bandiera et al., 2013; see
Blattman, Green, Jamison, Lehmann, & Annan, 2016 for a
similar
program in Uganda and Martinez, 2004 for a lump-sum benefit
in Bolivia). Relatedly, an evaluation of GiveDirectly in Kenya
found
increases in asset accumulation (and declines in the stress hor-
mone cortisol) when payments were disbursed as lump sums
(Haushofer & Shapiro, 2016).

Conditional cash transfers are generally designed to provide
payments on a regular, ongoing schedule, not as a lump sum.
Nonetheless, some CCTs have included lump-sum features.
Argen-
tina’s Asignación Universal por Hijo automatically saves 20%
of
each family’s monthly benefit in a bank account. The family
accesses the savings at year’s end by proving that children have
attended school and received vaccines (Rabinovich &
Diepeveen,
2015). Participants in Ecuador’s Bono de Desarrollo Humano
can
save multiple months of the benefit in an account (Rinehart &
McGuire, 2017, p. 167). In Colombia, Más Familias en Acción
pro-
vides families with a bimonthly cash transfer, and in 2005 the
city
of Bogotá supplemented this transfer with two pilot programs
that
provided randomly-selected families with lump sums (Barrera-
Osorio, Bertrand, Linden, & Perez-Calle, 2008). Mexico’s
Prospera
CCT offers Jóvenes con Prospera, a one-time cash benefit to
stu-
42 Increasing income also matters. It may be the case that
women’s power in the
household would be even more powerfully strengthened if the
Bolsa Família benefit
became more generous. This article does not consider that
possibility.
dents who graduate high school.43 Similarly, from 2007 to
2010,
New York City’s short-lived Opportunity NYC program topped
off
its monthly cash transfers with one-time incentives for achieve-

ments, such as passing high school exams (Peck & Theodore,
2015,
p. 57).44 PANES, in Uruguay, provided new beneficiaries with
back
pay from their initial date of application, and this money often
amounted to a sizable lump sum; Corboz found (in keeping with
the present article) that women often spent the sum on an
income-generating asset (2013, p. 70–77). The wide variety of
these
experiences suggests the viability of further research to
determine
not only the short-run outcomes of lump sums, but also the
deeper
mechanisms that these payments activate inside households.45
One unexpected conclusion of the present article is that unpre-
dictable payments to women can help reduce the gender asset
gap.
Unpredictability is not often a feature of good social policy.46
Nonetheless, it may be possible for policymakers to generate
benefi-
cial, serendipitous forms of unpredictability.47 For example, a
lump-
sum payment to women could be conditioned on the fulfillment
of
an important but difficult (hence difficult-to-predict) task, like
grad-
uating school, receiving a job offer, completing house
construction,
becoming pregnant (Fallon, et al., 2017), or achieving a saving
goal
(Zimmerman & Moury, 2009; see also Chiapa and Prina,
2015).48
Such a benefit could be incorporated in an existing CCT

program.
By rendering the lump sum difficult to anticipate, it is hoped,
policy-
makers will prevent the money from becoming assimilated into
existing gendered institutions, instead turning the payment into
a
true positive shock to women’s budgets.
The broader principle at stake, here, is that disruption can have
salutary effects for household budgeting.49 CCTs have largely
been
grounded in the opposite principle, the model of regular income
sup-
port. This model is proven to achieve notable improvements in
health, nutrition, education, and income inequality (Lustig,
Lopez-
Calva, & Ortiz-Juarez, 2013; de Brauw, Gilligan, Hoddinott, &
Roy,
2015; Skoufias, 2005; Kabeer, Piza, & Taylor, 2012; Fizbein,
Schady,
& Ferreira, 2009; Saavedra & García, 2012),50 and consistent
pay-
ments like CCTs are doubtlessly crucial elements in a study
safety
net. Barrientos, summing up the evidence, concludes, ‘‘In order
to
maximize their effect on investment, social transfers need to be
reg-
ular and reliable” (2012, p. 18). But irregularity and
unreliability may
serve important purposes as well. Particularly when confronting
deeply rooted forms of inequality, such as the gender asset gap,
manageable way.
50 See Piperata, McSweeny, & Murrieta, 2016 for a more
complex view of outcomes.
Using detailed anthropometric data, they demonstrate a possible

connection between
Bolsa Família and worsened nutritional results for beneficiary
households in the
Amazon.
http://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5421756%26fecha=
30/12/2015
http://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5421756%26fecha=
30/12/2015
unsettling instruments have a role to play. The toolshed of
social
assistance should contain implements for stability and
disruption
alike.
Conflict of interest
None.
Acknowledgments
This article exists, in large part, due to the guidance,
inspiration,
and faith of Alicia Menendez and Harold Pollock. Marcos
Rangel,
Mauro Barbosa de Almeida, and Manuela Carneiro da Cunha
pro-
vided valuable support. Helpful commentary was offered by Bill
Sites, Patrick Heller, Catherine Lutz, Julia Vich-Bertran,
Lindsey
Reynolds, Narges Bajoghli, and James Green.
Funding

This work was supported by the Inter-American Foundation
(Grassroots Development Fellowship), the Social Science
Research
Council (International Dissertation Research Fellowship), and
the
Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Chicago
(Tin-
ker Field Research Grant). All are gratefully acknowledged.
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