Cash Transfer Program: Between Empowering Women, Quality of Education and Reducing Child Labor in Cocoa-growing Communities in Côte d'Ivoire

Abstract

While the literature seldom establishes a direct link between cash transfers and improvements in children's foundational skills, this mixed-methods study examines the combined impact of an economic intervention (cash transfers through Village Savings and Loan Associations, VSLAs) and an educational one (Teaching at the Right Level, TaRL/PEC) on women's empowerment, children's learning, and child labour, in two cocoa-growing regions of Côte d'Ivoire (Bouaflé and Daloa). Drawing on a randomised controlled trial with four groups (beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of each intervention), it involves 2,451 pupils in grades CE1–CE2 at baseline and 3,808 at endline (including CM1), analyzed through ANOVA, independent-samples t-tests and Cohen's d, and complemented by interviews with 30 women and 27 teachers. The findings show a marked impact on women's economic and social empowerment. For learning outcomes, the effects are modest and differentiated: in reading, they remain weak and confined to CE1 (d = 0.22; p < 0.01), without generalizing; in numeracy, they are significant across all grades but limited in magnitude (d = 0.20 to 0.39; p < 0.001). This effectiveness depends largely on implementation conditions, teachers' knowledge of the program eroding from 78% to 67% over the school year. Finally, the transfer does not act directly on child labour, but moderates it indirectly through the joint mediation of the VSLAs and the school. The study thus documents the indirect, socially mediated pathways through which such interventions operate.

Classification JEL: M12

Paper type: Empirical research