Women’s empowerment and conditional cash transfer policies: evidence for the Bolsa Família Program

Abstract

With data from 2006 National Survey of Demography and Health of Children and Women applied in the calculation of synthetic indexes for dimensions of women’s empowerment (economic, domestic, and psychological) and in regressions with propensity score matching, the objective of this study was to assess whether the Bolsa Familia Program (BFP) acts as a catalyst for women’s empowerment. The results indicated that the BFP increases the probability of beneficiaries transitioning from an intermediate to a high level of empowerment in the economic and domestic dimensions. Thus, the program has a positive effect, but concentrated on women who already possess a certain level of awareness and empowerment.