Gender, Family Structure and Social Transfers in Argentina: the Case of Preschool Attendance

GALIANI, SEBASTIÁN; MARCHIONNI, MARIANA; SOSA ESCUDERO, WALTER

2001-01-01

2001-04-01

Prom.Gral.del Conoc.-Cs.Sociales

This project studies the impact of money transfers on young children’s welfare as measured by the probability of pre-school attendance for the case of Argentina. The study is based on the Encuesta de Desarrollo Social (Social Development Survey), a large sample household survey conducted in 1996. A simultaneous equations, bivariate probit model is estimated to study the impact of gender aspects and different family structures on the probability of attendance. Transfers are found to have a significant impact on children receiving pre-school education, especially boy children. Since the amount transferred is actually very low, this suggests that similar and better targeted interventions should have considerable impact on pre-school attendance. Gender and family structure effects emerge : mothers’ education and employment status seem to be more important than corresponding variables for fathers in determining children’s pre-school attendance. Also transfers are found to be less powerful in incomplete families, which in the case of Argentina, corresponds mostly to the case of households headed by females. The paper also points out several methodological issues related to the empirical analysis of welfare for the Argentine case, especially those related to the questionable quality of the available data.