Conditional Cash Transfers and Gender Equality: Short-Term Effects on Female Empowerment

Abstract: Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have become an increasingly popular policy approach in the fight against poverty. In addition to their main goal of reducing poverty, CCT programs are also often claimed to have positive short-term impacts on beneficiary women. This is an interesting claim to examine further since gender equality and female empowerment are generally seen as key issues in global development and in national efforts to promote economic growth. Therefore, potential links between CCT programs and female empowerment are in this thesis analysed in the relatively unexplored context of Indonesia and the CCT initiative Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH). A quantitative analysis suggests no significant short-term impacts on female empowerment of this particular CCT program. To examine what could be the reason for the null result, qualitative field research is conducted to see through what channels PKH may have power to affect gender equality, and how these potential channels could be improved. The qualitative research results point towards several important features in the program design that could be utilised in order to empower the beneficiary women.