Effect of Conditional Cash Transfers on education: The case of Mexican program Progresa-Oportunidades

Abstract

Development through education has been a topic of interest in the research world for many years. Countries’ administrations and development International Institutions like the World Bank, IADB, ADB, etc. play a core role in this matter. These actions and projects may lead to different outcomes that we can group mainly in three: access to education, quality of education, and education attainment. This dissertation analyzes the effects of Mexican biggest aid program Progresa-Oportunidades, focusing on education attainment; and tries to understand how this program has impacted on education, and to what extent it has improved the beneficiaries.

This dissertation complements the existing evidence of the impact evaluation series of the Progresa-Oportunidades program, focusing on education attainment. Using micro-data from the Mexican Secretariat of Social Development which covers the Conditional Cash Transfers monitoring and surveys to families from the Progresa-Oportunidades program, I find that, overall, the Mexican program improves the promotion of education (access, attendance, and quality) compared to same scenario without aid. The findings and discussion demonstrate the high impact of the Progresa-Oportunidades program in educational attainment. Overall, the beneficiaries of the program achieve, on average, two years education degrees higher than the ones in the control group. More research is needed to measure if raising enrollments and increasing attainment and quality are sufficient to ensure basic literacy and numeracy, and therefore, reduce poverty at the national level.