Principal investigator: Angelo Cruz do Nascimento Varella
Article title: THE SCHOOLING DECISION: FAMILY PREFERENCES, INTERGENERATIONAL CONFLICT, AND MORAL HAZARD IN THE BRAZILIAN FAVELAS
Article authors: Leonardo Bursztyn and Lucas C. Coffman
Location of the intervention: Federal District, Brazil
Sample size: 210 Families
Sector: Education
Type of Intervention: Experiment on financial transfers
Main Variable of Interest: Family decisions about the education of young people
Evaluation method: Experimental Evaluation (RCT)
Policy Problem
Brazilian education, as in many developing countries, is a major challenge. Despite being compulsory for children and young people from the age of six, education in Brazil is not properly implemented. According to the 2006 National Household Sample Survey (PNAD) conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), considering the poorest 25% of the population, approximately 9% of 14-year-olds were not attending school. This reality was even worse for 15-year-olds, with more than 15% not studying and more than 22% already working.
Although these percentages have decreased over the last few decades, school dropout remains a considerable problem in the country. One possible explanation lies in the fact that young people and adults disagree on the importance of education, so that those responsible for the family tend to value education more than their dependents. In these cases, students may miss classes without their family's knowledge, exacerbating the problem of absenteeism without their relatives identifying the issue or being able to take the necessary steps. The lack of monitoring and communication mechanisms between educational institutions and responsible families exacerbates this situation.
Assessment Context
In 2008, despite compulsory education in Brazil, 10% of the population aged 15 and over was still illiterate, with an average per capita of 7,1 years of schooling, representing incomplete primary education in terms of educational levels. One of the most effective ways to combat this problem and encourage school attendance in Brazil is through conditional cash transfer programs, which assist low-income households on the condition that they meet pre-established demands related to public education.
One of these programs, Bolsa-Escola (School Grant), was created in 1995 for the Federal District and implemented nationally in 1998. Subsequently, in 2003, the federal initiative was unified with other public policies in the Bolsa Família Program. Such conditional aid programs are socially relevant since they allow the government to stimulate education and, simultaneously, combat poverty and social inequality. In fact, in Brazil, the implementation of such national actions has significantly helped reduce poverty and illiteracy indicators, increasing school attendance.
Policy Details
This research evaluated the Bolsa-Escola program, which in 2009 was still administered separately by the government of the Federal District. To be eligible for the aid, the family's monthly per capita income had to be up to half the minimum wage, just over 230 reais, and all children between 6 and 15 years of age belonging to the family unit had to attend at least 85% of the school days, under penalty of suspension of the financial aid. If the criteria were met, the person responsible for the students received 120 reais per month for the first child and 30 reais per month for each additional child of school age. The limit of the support was 180 reais per month for each participating family.
Based on the existence of this conditional cash transfer program, an experiment was created with the intention of analyzing the existence of conflicts between different generations in low-income families, related to the education of the youngest members. To this end, between June and July 2009, researchers evaluated 210 families in the Federal District who were beneficiaries of the Bolsa-Escola program and who had only one eligible young person, aged between 13 and 15 years, since individuals in this age group were more prone to dropping out of school.
Methodology Details
The evaluation was conducted through an interview system, in which families were previously divided into four groups. Each group was presented with distinct scenarios offering alternatives to income transfer programs, encompassing different amounts and conditions for receiving payments. The details are described below:
- Group 1 (Control) – The parent or guardian chose whether they preferred to receive the aid on the condition that their dependent attend 85% of the school days, or whether they preferred to receive the funds unconditionally. The questions were repeated with increasing amounts of 5 reais each time, so that the conditional amount increased first and then the unconditional amount. The objective is to ascertain the value that parents place on their children's education. The young people were informed about their parents' choice;
Example: Do you prefer 120 reais conditional or 120 reais unconditional? And 125 reais conditional to 120 reais unconditional? And 130 to 120? And so on, up to 180, for each of the values.
- 2 Group - The person in charge received the same options as group 1, without the young person knowing their choice. The objective is to measure the conflict between generations.
- 3 Group - The guardian also had the same options as group 1, including the option to receive free text messages about their dependent's school attendance. The goal is to measure the guardians' ability to control their access to information.
- 4 Group - The person responsible received the same options as group 1, with the difference that receiving the option was contingent on the young person's presence at school, without the need to attend classes. The objective is to observe the value of education versus the option of taking the young person off the streets.
To encourage participation, the responsible family members received amounts between 7 and 10 reais and were informed that 5% of the participants would be randomly selected to have their decisions implemented.
Results
In group 1, the control group, 88% of the guardians chose the program with the educational condition, and 82% preferred to adopt the conditional system, even when the unconditional amount was higher. In this group, the guardians did not mind foregoing up to 37 reais per month more, without the conditions to receive it, to maintain the school attendance of their dependents, which shows a preference for the education of their young people.
In group 2, when the young people were unaware of the conditions, only 44% of the guardians preferred conditional transfers, and only 25% preferred to adopt the conditions when the unconditional transfer was higher. This demonstrates that guardians value the ability to monitor their dependents more and believe that young people do not value education in the same way they do.
A similar phenomenon occurred in group 3, in which only 35% of relatives preferred to receive conditional transfers and only 29% chose conditions when unconditional transfers were more valuable, since the text messaging system provides control to those responsible.
In group 4, the results demonstrate that those responsible attribute value to school attendance beyond education, such as keeping young people off the streets, for example. In this group, relatives preferred conditional transfers in 74% of cases. Even when unconditional transfers were more common, 68% of those responsible still preferred the conditions of school attendance.
Lessons in Public Policy
The results of the experiment, for the four groups, indicate that parents and young people tend to disagree on the importance of education, with older parents willing to forgo income to have the ability to monitor the educational behavior of younger children. The study suggests that ways of informing parents about their children's school attendance are a useful tool for families to help keep students in school. Therefore, by providing families with tools to monitor and inform about young people's education, public policies can reduce the problem of school dropout, helping parents ensure the education of children and adolescents in the country.
Reference
BURSZTYN, Leonardo; COFFMAN, Lucas C. The schooling decision: Family preferences, intergenerational conflict, and moral danger in the Brazilian favelas. Journal of Political Economy, vol. 120, no. 3, p. 359-397, 2012.
