The Bolsa Família Case

The Bolsa Família Case PDF

Author: Thiago Monteiro de Souza

Publisher: Editora Dialética

Published: 2022-12-14

Total Pages: 105

ISBN-13: 6525262100

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The theory of the Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) has been debated for centuries. However, one of the major obstacles to the implementation of the UBI is lack of empirical testing. Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs that resemble the UBI, to a certain degree, as is the case of the Bolsa Família (BF), have also been implemented. This project is internationally considered as an example of success in combating historical poverty and inequality in Brazil. Observing what lessons may be learned from the Brazilian experience, the present work thus aims to analyze the Bolsa Família program so that contributions to current UBI studies may also be considered. To achieve this end, based on the theoretical foundations of the UBI, some central topics are addressed, namely: (i) Freedom, (ii) Labor, (iii) Politics and (iv) Feminism. Subsequently, the present study focuses on the Bolsa Família experience, narrating the genesis of the program, as well as its implementation and evolution over the years, which makes it possible to look into how the Brazilian socioeconomic indexes have been affected since the creation of this Income Transfer policy. Without intending to be an end in itself, the present work aims to engage and encourage the debate on setting up a functional and improved UBI project.

Social Programs and Formal Employment: Evidence from the Brazilian Bolsa Família Program

Social Programs and Formal Employment: Evidence from the Brazilian Bolsa Família Program PDF

Author: Anna Fruttero

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2020-06-19

Total Pages: 21

ISBN-13: 1513547704

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Employment is key to combating poverty. Thus, detractors of social assistance programs argue that they create disincentives to work. While there is substantial evidence showing limited effects of these programs on overall labor supply, the jury is still out with respect to their impact on formal employment. This paper exploits an unannounced change in the eligibility rule of the Bolsa Familia program in Brazil, one of the oldest and largest conditional cash transfers in the world, to identify the causal impact of the program on formal employment, combining three large administrative datasets. This paper finds that the program has a positive effect on entry in formal labor market, especially for younger cohorts.

Money, Autonomy and Citizenship

Money, Autonomy and Citizenship PDF

Author: Alessandro Pinzani

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-26

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 3030013618

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This book analyzes the impacts on peoples’ lives of the largest antipoverty social program in the world: the Brazilian Bolsa Família Program. Created by the government of former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsa Família has been for a time the largest conditional cash transfer program in the world, serving more than 50 million Brazilians who had a monthly per capita income of less than USD 50. The program is regarded as one of the key factors behind the significant poverty reduction Brazil experienced during the first decade of the 21st century. Bolsa Família is neither a credit scheme nor a loan. It is a program of civic inclusion: it aims to help citizens meet their most basic needs and sometimes just to survive. Its goal is to create citizenship, not to merely train the entrepreneurial spirit. Having this in mind, the authors of this book spent five years (2006-2011) interviewing more than 150 women registered in the program to see how the cash transfers impacted their everyday lives. The authors concluded that the program produces significant social impacts in the beneficiaries’ lives by increasing their levels of moral, economic and political autonomy, promoting citizenship. Money, Autonomy and Citizenship - The Experience of the Brazilian Bolsa Família will be of interest to both academic researchers and public agents involved with the study, development and implementation of public policies aimed at reducing poverty and promoting social justice.

Great Policy Successes

Great Policy Successes PDF

Author: Paul 't Hart

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0198843712

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"Or, a tale about why it's amazing that governments get so little credit for their many everyday and extraordinary achievements as told by sympathetic observers who seek to create space for a less relentlessly negative view of our pivotal public institutions."

Avoiding Governors

Avoiding Governors PDF

Author: Tracy Beck Fenwick

Publisher:

Published: 2015-12-20

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780268070595

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With the goal of showing the effect of domestic factors on the performance of poverty alleviation strategies in Latin America, Tracy Beck Fenwick explores the origins and rise of conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) in the region, and then traces the politics and evolution of specific programs in Brazil and Argentina. Utilizing extensive field research and empirical analysis, Fenwick analyzes how federalism affects the ability of a national government to deliver CCTs. One of Fenwick's key findings is that broad institutional, structural, and political variables are more important in the success or failure of CCTs than the technical design of programs. Contrary to the mainstream interpretations of Brazilian federalism, her analysis shows that municipalities have contributed to the relative success of Bolsa Familia and its ability to be implemented territory-wide. Avoiding Governors probes the contrast with Argentina, where the structural, political, and fiscal incentives for national-local policy cooperation have not been adequate, at least this far, to sustain a CCT program that is conditional on human capital investments. She thus challenges the virtue of what is considered to be a mainly majoritarian democratic system. By laying out the key factors that condition whether mayors either promote or undermine national policy objectives, Fenwick concludes that municipalities can either facilitate or block a national government's ability to deliver targeted social policy goods and to pursue a poverty alleviation strategy. By distinguishing municipalities as separate actors, she presents a dynamic intergovernmental relationship; indeed, she identifies a power struggle between multiple levels of government and their electorates, not just a dichotomously framed two-level game of national versus subnational.

Conditional Cash Transfers

Conditional Cash Transfers PDF

Author: Ariel Fiszbein

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2009-02-09

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 9780821373538

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Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs aim to reduce poverty by making welfare programs conditional upon the receivers' actions. That is, the government only transfers the money to persons who meet certain criteria. These criteria may include enrolling children into public schools, getting regular check-ups at the doctor's office, receiving vaccinations, or the like. They have been hailed as a way of reducing inequality and helping households break out of a vicious cycle whereby poverty is transmitted from one generation to another. Do these and other claims make sense? Are they supported by the available empirical evidence? This volume seeks to answer these and other related questions. Specifically, it lays out a conceptual framework for thinking about the economic rationale for CCTs; it reviews the very rich evidence that has accumulated on CCTs; it discusses how the conceptual framework and the evidence on impacts should inform the design of CCT programs in practice; and it discusses how CCTs fit in the context of broader social policies. The authors show that there is considerable evidence that CCTs have improved the lives of poor people and argue that conditional cash transfers have been an effective way of redistributing income to the poor. They also recognize that even the best-designed and managed CCT cannot fulfill all of the needs of a comprehensive social protection system. They therefore need to be complemented with other interventions, such as workfare or employment programs, and social pensions.

The Social Life of Economic Inequalities in Contemporary Latin America

The Social Life of Economic Inequalities in Contemporary Latin America PDF

Author: Margit Ystanes

Publisher: Saint Philip Street Press

Published: 2020-10-09

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9781013289415

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This edited volume examines how economic processes have worked upon social lives and social realities in Latin America during the past decades. Through tracing the effects of the neoliberal epoch into the era of the so-called pink tide, the book seeks to understand to what extent the turn to the left at the start of the millennium managed to challenge historically constituted configurations of inequality. A central argument in the book is that in spite of economic reforms and social advances on a range of arenas, the fundamental tenants of socio-economic inequalities have not been challenged substantially. As several countries are now experiencing a return to right-wing politics, this collection helps us better understand why inequalities are so entrenched in the Latin American continent, but also the complex and creative ways that it is continuously contested. The book directs itself to students, scholars and anyone interested in Latin America, economic anthropology, political anthropology, left-wing politics, poverty and socio-economic inequalities. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Brazilian Foreign Policy in Changing Times

Brazilian Foreign Policy in Changing Times PDF

Author: Gabriel Cepaluni

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 191

ISBN-13: 0739128825

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Brazilian Foreign Policy in Changing Times contributes both empirically and theoretically to the study of international relations. The book illuminates Brazilian foreign policy in the democratic era, a subject scarcely touched on elsewhere. This book also offers a new conceptualization of the debate on the path to an autonomous foreign policy.

The Impact of Bolsa Família on Schooling

The Impact of Bolsa Família on Schooling PDF

Author: de Brauw, Alan

Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 36

ISBN-13:

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We estimate the impact of Bolsa Família on a range of education outcomes, including school participation, grade progression, grade repetition, and dropout rates. Using a large-sample household panel survey from 2005–2009 collected for this evaluation, we develop a statistically balanced comparison group of eligible nonparticipant households and estimate impacts using propensity-score-weighted regression. We estimate that Bolsa Família increased average school participation among all children age 6 to 17 years by (a weakly significant) 4.5 percent. It had no effect on grade promotion, on average. However, within the subsample of girls, Bolsa Família caused substantial improvements in schooling outcomes, including significant increases in school participation (8.2 percent) and rates of grade progression (10.4 percent). We show that the gains in girls’ schooling do not derive from catch-up effects, but rather increase girls’ existing advantage in schooling attainment. In general, impacts are larger among older children, in rural areas, and in the Northeast.