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General

Study Overview

Title:

Long-term Impacts of the Philippines Conditional Cash Transfer Program

Study is 3ie funded:

No

Study ID:

RIDIE-STUDY-ID-5e61e5de80f7a

Initial Registration Date:

03/05/2020

Last Update Date:

02/17/2020

Study Status:

Ongoing

Location(s):

Philippines

Abstract:

We evaluate the long-term impact of receiving the conditional cash transfer program in the Philippines: Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4P). Specifically, we assess the sustained effects of the transfer on young adults who are currently in their early twenties and were previously exposed to the program as adolescents. In addition to analyzing whether the program achieved its objectives through affecting long-term education, employment and welfare outcomes, we also explore the program’s impacts on empowerment outcomes, measured using (i) socio-economic proxies of empowerment, such as age at marriage and fertility, (ii) direct measures of empowerment, such as locus of control and Relative Autonomy Index, (iii) intra-household decision making, and (iv) empowerment within community. We examine impacts on the former 4P beneficiaries, as well as on their partners. Finally, we also explore the long-term impact of the 4P program on exposure to Gender-Based Violence, including Intimate Partner Violence, non-partner domestic violence and non-domestic violence, for former female beneficiaries and female partners of former male beneficiaries.

Registration Citation:

Categories:

Health, Nutrition, and Population
Social Protection

Additional Keywords:

CCTs, Gender Based Violence, empowerment, intra-household bargaining

Secondary ID Number(s):

Principal Investigator(s)

Name of First PI:

Elizaveta Perova

Affiliation:

World Bank

Name of Second PI:

Abhilasha Sahay

Affiliation:

George Washington University

Study Sponsor

Name:

World Bank

Study Sponsor Location:

United States

Research Partner

Name of Partner Institution:

Department of Social Welfare and Development

Type of Organization:

Government agency (eg., statistics office, Ministry of Health)

Location:

Philippines

Intervention

Intervention Overview

Intervention:

The 4P program is a conditional cash transfer program in the Philippines, administered by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). It was initiated in 2008 and currently covers more than four million poor households nationwide. Like most CCT programs, it seeks to break intergenerational transmission of poverty via investments in human capital. It provides cash incentives to poor households with children under the age of 18, on the condition that they invest in the health and education of their children and avail maternal health services. To be eligible for the program, households must be identified as poor by the Listahanan, must have a pregnant member or at least one child aged 0-18 years old and must commit to the program conditionalities, including attending family development sessions.

The program has undergone two key changes since its inception in 2008. First, during initial rollout of the 4P program, few randomly selected barangays were given treatment. However, 2.5 years later, the control group was also exposed to the program. Second, initially the program was designed to provide benefits for children 0 – 14 years old. However, this age limit was extended to 18 years old in 2015, with the motivation of supporting beneficiary children to at least finish high school. We utilize both these programmatic changes to identify the effect of the program on young adults who were previously exposed during adolescence. Among the control barangays, children who were 12.5 years or older during initial roll out never received the program; they were neither eligible when the program first arrived at their barangays (due to age restriction of 14) nor when the age restriction was raised to 18 in 2015 (since this cohort was above 18 by 2015).

Theory of Change:

The primary focus of this IE is on the long-term impact of exposure to the 4P program in adolescence on empowerment and risk of Gender Based Violence.We expect the 4P program to affect adult outcomes of beneficiary adolescents through four primary channels: (i) accumulation of human capital; (ii) relaxing of household consumption and income constraints during adolescent years; (iii) indirect impacts from changes in behavior/relationships of adolescent’s parents; (iv) change in gender norms. We discuss each of these channels below.

1. Accumulation of human capital: we expect this improved human capital to translate into better employment opportunities in adulthood, which may increase opportunity costs of early marriage and childbearing and translate into greater self-efficacy and self-worth in adulthood.
2. Relaxing consumption constraints: existing literature suggests that in context of deprivation and poverty, adolescents may resort to early marriage and/or transactional sex to secure consumption (Baird et al 2012, 2013). Consequently, relaxing consumption constraints can enable adolescents to stay at school longer and engage in gainful employment, delay marriage and decrease likelihood of early pregnancy during adulthood.
3. CCTs may have indirect impacts on adolescents through observing changes in behavior/relationship between their parents, especially changes related to risk of GBV.
4. Finally, CCT programs may impact adolescent’s perception of gender norms. These impacts are theoretically ambiguous. On the one hand, CCTs may induce gender equitable norms by increasing women’s bargaining power (through channeling cash directly into women’s hands). On the other hand, they may perpetuate unequal gender norms, by imposing conditionalities that generally becomes a purview of women and are aligned with traditional gender roles (such as women taking care of the children).

Multiple Treatment Arms Evaluated?

No

Implementing Agency

Name of Organization:

Department of Social Welfare and Development

Type of Organization:

Public Sector, e.g. Government Agency or Ministry

Program Funder

Name of Organization:

Department of Social Welfare and Development

Type of Organization:

Public Sector, e.g. Government Agency or Ministry

Intervention Timing

Intervention or Program Started at time of Registration?

Yes

Start Date:

04/01/2009

End Date:

Evaluation Method

Evaluation Method Overview

Primary (or First) Evaluation Method:

Randomized control trial

Other (not Listed) Method:

Additional Evaluation Method (If Any):

Other (not Listed) Method:

Method Details

Details of Evaluation Approach:

We will take advantage of initial randomized rollout of the program. During initial rollout of the 4P program in April 2009, few randomly selected barangays were given treatment. However, 2.5 years after the program was rolled-out, the control group was also exposed to the program. Nevertheless, children who were 12.5 years or older during initial roll out never received the program. Thus, they constitute a pure control group.

 

 

Outcomes (Endpoints):

Primary outcomes:

• Education: completed schooling, years of education, enrollment in non-formal types of schooling
• Labor market: Employment status, LFP, paid employment, underemployment
• Assets: housing conditions, asset ownership

Secondary outcomes:

• Socio-economic proxies of empowerment: age at marriage and at first-born child, fraction of time spent on household chores, paid activities and unpaid activities
• Participation in intra-household decision making
• Direct measures of empowerment: relative autonomy index, locus of control
• Empowerment in the community: support networks, information networks, collective action
• Gender-based violence
• Subjective well-being: patient health scale, perception of quality of life
• Attitude and perception towards gender norms, gender-based violence, and violence against children

Unit of Analysis:

individual, household

Hypotheses:

Primary impacts:

•            Exposure to CCTs during adolescence can improve education, employment and welfare outcomes in adulthood

Secondary impacts:

•            Exposure to CCTs during adolescence can enhance empowerment in adulthood. We measure empowerment using socio-economic proxies, direct measures of empowerment, intra-household decision-making and role in the community.

•            Exposure to CCTs in adolescence can reduce risk of gender-based violence in adulthood.

•            Exposure to CCTs in adolescence can reduce life-time risk of transactional sex.

•            Exposure to CCT during adolescence can change attitudes towards gender norms and violence inflicted on women and children, in adulthood.

Unit of Intervention or Assignment:

Barangay

Number of Clusters in Sample:

71

Number of Individuals in Sample:

932

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

466 treatment, 466 control

Supplementary Files

Other Documents:

IRB approval letter: 630WBG19 HML IRB EXPEDITED Review Philippines CCT on Empowerment APPROVAL LETTER.pdf
IRB approval : 630WBG19 HML IRB EXPEDITED Review Philippines CCT on Empowerment APPROVAL.pdf

Data

Outcomes Data

Description:

We are collecting a household and an individual survey. For married/partnered individuals, individual survey is administered to former beneficiary and beneficiary's partner.

Data Already Collected?

Yes

Data Previously Used?

No

Data Access:

Restricted -- Access requires a formal approval process

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Approval Process:

We collected the data, and plan to make it public after conducting analysis.

Approval Status:

Yes-obtained approval and have received the data

Treatment Assignment Data

Participation or Assignment Information:

Yes

Description:

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Previously Used?

Data Access:

Data Obtained by the Study Researchers?

Data Approval Process:

Approval Status:

Data Analysis

Data Analysis Status:

No

Study Materials

Upload Study Materials:

Registration Category

Registration Category:

Prospective, Category 3: Data for measuring impacts have been obtained/collected by the research team but analysis for this evaluation has not started

Completion

Completion Overview

Intervention Completion Date:

Data Collection Completion Date:

Unit of Analysis:

Clusters in Final Sample:

Total Observations in Final Sample:

Size of Treatment, Control, or Comparison Subsamples:

Findings

Preliminary Report:

Preliminary Report URL:

Summary of Findings:

Paper:

Paper Summary:

Paper Citation:

Data Availability

Data Availability (Primary Data):

Date of Data Availability:

Data URL or Contact:

Access procedure:

Other Materials

Survey:

Survey Instrument Links or Contact:

Program Files:

Program Files Links or Contact:

External Link:

External Link Description:

Description of Changes:

Study Stopped

Date:

Reason: