School Subsidies for the Poor: Evaluating the Mexican Progresa Poverty Program
This author evaluates how the Progresa Program, which provides poor mothers in rural Mexico with education grants, has affected enrollment.
Poor children who reside in communities randomly selected to participate in the initial phase of the Progresa are compared to those who reside in other (control) communities. Pre-program comparisons check the randomized design, and double difference estimators of the program’s effect on the treated are calculated by grade and sex. Probit models are also estimated for the probability a child is enrolled, controlling for additional characteristics of the child, their parents, local schools, and community, and for sample attrition, to evaluate the sensitivity of the program estimates. Findings indicate that:
- The levels of enrollment rates of comparably poor children in Progresa localities (treatment) are higher than in non-Progresa localities (control);
- Targeted transfer payment has the effect of reducing the economic inequality in school enrollments within the Progresa localities compared with that in the non-Progresa localities.