Mexico’s Model Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program for Fighting Poverty is PROGRESA or Oportunidades, which combines a traditional cash transfer program with financial incentives for positive behavior in health, education, and nutrition specifically in low-income children. The program gives cash exclusively to mothers as long as children regularly attended school and appointments for preventive health care. Mexico’s CCT program reflects the belief that caring for all dimensions of human capital has more socioeconomic returns than considering every impoverished person individually. Better health and nutritional status are not only important by themselves, but have an impact on the effectiveness of education programs (since school attendance and performance are often negatively affected by poor health and nutrition). This is why poor health is seen as a cause and a consequence of poverty. There are studies conducted in different areas of Mexico to evaluate the effectiveness of the PROGRESA program, particularly by looking at boys and girls.
PROGRESA determined household eligibility in two parts, first by identifying underserved communities and then by choosing low-income households within those communities. Approximately, 78% of the households in selected communities were categorized as being eligible. All households in these communities were offered PROGRESA, and 93% enrolled in the program (Parker et al. 2001). Every two months PROGRESA families would get cash transfers usually worth 20-30% of their household income, if conditions are met. An example of these conditions is that: children who are 24-60 months old must attend nutrition monitoring clinics every four months where their growth is measured; they receive supplements ...
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...ortunidades. It now covers 2.6 million families in extreme poverty in rural areas, or about 40 percent of all rural families in Mexico.
Works Cited
Gertler, Paul. “Do Conditional Cash Transfers Improve Child Health? Evidence from PROGRESA's Control Randomized Experiment”. The American Economic Review Vol. 94, No. 2. San Diego: American Economic Association (2004), pp. 336-341.
Parker, Emmanuel Skoufias et al. “Conditional Cash Transfers and Their Impact on Child Work and Schooling: Evidence from the PROGRESA Program in Mexico”. Economía Vol. 2, No. 1. Washington: Brookings Institution Press (2001). pp. 46-96.
Lagarde, Mylene, Andy Haines, & Natasha Palmer. “Conditional Cash Transfers for Improving Uptake of Health Interventions in Low and Middle-Income Countries”. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Vol. 298, No. 16. (2007). pp. 1900-10.
Chawla, M., Windak, A., Berman, P., & Kulis, M. (1997). Paying the Physician: Review of Different Methods. Data for Decision Making Project,Department of Population and International Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachussetts
In addition, Mexicans as well as US citizens will start to demand more accountability from the Mexican government and the Maquiladora industry. They need to be more responsible for their actions. What will the U.S. corporations do when human rights activists and environmentalists start lobbying and protesting on their US sites? Do they want to risk losing their shareholders to this type of negative attention?
Food insecurity is one of the major social problems that we have in our world today. The concern about this problem is the increasing number of people that are beginning to experience hunger more often. “While hunger has long been a public health concern in developing countries, it has received varying degrees of attention in the United States, most notable during the 1930s and 1960s” (Poppendieck 1992). In addition to lack of food, there are consequences that follow. People, especially children, who suffer from food deprivation also undergo some health issues such as malnutrition and obesity, which leads to more health care and hospitalizations. “In the early 1980s, most reports of hunger involved families with children, the elderly, the unskilled and unemployed youth, the mentally ill, the homeless and minorities” (Brown 1992; Nestle and Guttmacher 1992). However, a particular ethnic group that is greatly affected by food insecurities are the Hispanic...
United States. Economic and Social Council. Department of Economic and Social Affairs.Family Social Policy and Development Division. By Robert Cliquet. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, n.d. Web. Oct. 2013.
For the research that will be conducted, poverty will be measured through federal programs from the Great Society introduced by President Lyndon Johnson, which is a series of social programs established to reduce or eliminate poverty in urban environments. The federal programs that will be highlighted from the Great Society will be The Department of Housing (HUD), The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). A brief description of these programs includes HUD, which deals with developing the housing in urban area for low-income individuals, The Economic Opportunity Act was established to help the improvement of education, while TANF is explained as a financial assistance to help individuals pay for food, shelter, utilities, and other expenses. Lastly, SNAP is defined as a food voucher issued by the government to individuals with low income.
involvement to minimize poverty and its many social ills through programs that put incentives on
Miller, Claire Cain. “The Economic Benefits of Paid Parental Leave.” The New York Times. 30 January 2015.
The first reasons to think that foreign aid should be spend is that “Aid saves lives” which is clearly illustrated by the researches conducted. Compare 1990 to 2010, as a result of aid in vaccines and health, there was a decrease in number of children who died from illness of pneumonia and diarrhoea (BBC). For example, in Botswana, the foreign aid fund had provided a test of HIV for pregnant mothers and therefore decrease the amount of newborn babies which catches HIV. Furthermore, in Bangladesh, there is a 62% drop in death rate for the under five children, the aid fund allows the government to be able to afford “vaccines and trained the midwives”.
The poverty rate for different ethnic group varies a substantial amount (Smith, 2003). Poverty rate amongst blacks and Hispanics exceeds the national average (Smith, 2003). In 2010, 27.4 percent o...
... higher incomes to support the program. Parents can use their health care plans to include their children till the age of 26 which solved similar problems to John’ son.
Access to health care in Ethiopia has left many people without proper health care and eventual death. Millions of people living in Ethiopia die because of the lack of access to the health care system; improving the access to the healthcare system in Ethiopia can prevent many of the deaths that occur, but doing so will pose a grueling and challenging task. According to Chaya (2012), poor health coverage is of particular concern in rural Ethiopia, where access to any type of modern health institution is limited at best (p. 1). If citizen of Ethiopia had more accessibility of the healthcare system more individuals could be taught how to practice safe health practices. In Ethiopia where HIV, and maternal and infant mortality rates are sky high, more education on the importance of using the healthcare system and makin...
Many of the reasons why the income gap is important tie into how it impacts Latin America. People living in the slums are prone to catching diseases. This could lead up to the spreading of those diseases and many people be...
Childhood poverty has increased to its highest point in 20 years (Holland, 2014) and become a major concern and issue in the United States. Since 2007-2009 poverty has increased 2.3 percentage points for white children and 6.4 percentage points for Hispanics (Lopez, & Velasco, 2011). The Children’s defense fund states that 1in5 children in America are poor. This increase is putting millions of children at an increased risk of injury or death (Holland, 2014). The U.S. has been fighting the war on poverty for over fifty years and there has not been much progress. Besides health, poverty affects many other aspects of a child’s life and development, but it especially affects their cognitive and education ability. The educational and cognitive gaps
Many studies illustrate that high quality child care helps children who have been brought up in poverty to develop skills that enable better education, jobs and earnings (Adelman). It would help to reduce poverty if more parents would invest money `into high quality child care, because children would be able to learn the skills that they should know to get a good education. In an article entitled “9 Ways to Reduce Poverty,” Larry Adelman stated that “Investments in infrastructure—fixing old bridges, building mass transit, converting to clean energy sources—and investments in vital services such as schools, childcare and eldercare generate both public benefits and jobs.” Investments in the most important buildings and structures in a community would help to create job opportunities, which could benefit people who are in poverty by allowing them the opportunity to get a job. Poverty reduction would benefit the economy and the people who suffer from
"Better benefits for working moms ." Jobs & Economy. CNN Money, 21 Sept. 2004. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.