An Evaluation of the Bolsa Familia Program in Brazil: Expenditures, Education and Labor Outcomes

Ana Oliveira, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional (CEDEPLAR)
Julio C. Sousa, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional (CEDEPLAR)

The Bolsa Familia, created in 2003, is a program of conditional income transfer to families in a situation of poverty and aims to immediately mitigate the poverty by direct income transfer. The purpose of this paper is to present the first results of an impact evaluation of the Bolsa Familia program on various dimensions. Results are presented for household indicators of education, work and expenditures and are based on data of the first round of the survey for the impact evaluation. Some important results are based on retrospective and current educational information, which allowed the estimation of transition probabilities for the construction of a schooling life table. Using the propensity score matching method, there are not many statistically significant results for the differences between our comparison groups. Nevertheless, the significant results are, in general, favorable to the beneficiaries of the program.