The Role of Conditional Cash Transfers in Reducing Spousal Abuse in Mexico: Short-Term vs. Long-Term Effects *

Abstract

This paper provides evidence of the longer-term effects of the Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program on male-to-female spousal violence. We use data from two nationally- representative surveys that include detailed information on the prevalence of spousal abuse and threats of violence against women. Constructing comparable groups of beneficiary and non-beneficiary households within each village to minimize potential selection biases, we find that, in contrast to the short-run estimates, physical and emotional abuse rates do not vary significantly among existing beneficiary and non-beneficiary couples. We examine possible mechanisms for the discrepancy in the short and long-term impacts of the program; most importantly, the role that marital selection may play in explaining these differential effects.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 21 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.