Gender targeting of unconditional income transfers and child nutritional status: Experimental evidence from the Bolivian Amazon

Observational studies suggest that women’s income benefits children’s health and nutritional status, as well as education, more than men’s income, apparently because women are more likely to shift marginal resources to their children. These studies have influenced policies such as conditional cash transfers, which typically target women. However, previous studies have been unable to control for unobserved heterogeneity in child endowments and parental preferences. We report the results of a trial that allocated randomly one-time in-kind income in the form of edible rice (the main staple and cash crop in the study area) or rice seeds to the female or male household head (edible rice transfers, range: 30-395 kg/household; rice seeds: 5.9 kg/household). The trial took place in a society of native Amazonian forager-farmers in Bolivia (2008-2009). Outcomes included four anthropometric indicators of short-run nutritional status of 848 children from 40 villages. We found that the transfers produced no discernible impact on short-run (~5 months) nutritional status of children, or any differential effects between girls and boys by the gender of the household head who received the transfers. These null results probably relate to specific social norms of the Tsimane’, such as pooling of food resources, shared preferences, and relatively equal bargaining power between Tsimane’ women and men. The results highlight the probable importance of culture in household resource allocation and suggest that gender targeting in cash transfer programs might not increase investments in children in societies where women and men have more egalitarian household relationship

Changes in adult well-being and economic inequalities : An exploratory observational longitudinal study (2002-2010) of micro-level trends among Tsimane', a small-scale rural society of Indigenous People in the Bolivian Amazon

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-MKnowing what happens over time to the lifeways of people in contemporary small-scale non-industrial societies of the rural Global South matters because it helps assess changes in the quality of life of underrepresented groups. It has been hard to answer the question because longitudinal information is rarely collected in such settings. A longitudinal dataset of nine years (2002-2010) from a horticultural-foraging society of Indigenous People in the Bolivian Amazon (Tsimane') is used for an exploratory analysis of micro-level trends in indicators of well-being and economic inequalities. We selected 13 Tsimane' villages (from ∼ 100) that varied in proximity to town and surveyed all households in each village. ∼ 240 households were followed yearly to estimate trends of 21 outcomes (e.g., income, sociality, macronutrients). For each economic outcome, annual and all-years-combined Gini coefficients were estimated for the entire sample across the 13 villages. We show a rise in total asset wealth, a change in asset composition (less traditional wealth, more commercial wealth), higher monetary value of foods eaten, and better-perceived health, but a decline in caloric and protein consumption and no marked gender differences in objective or hedonic measures of well-being. Economic inequalities were non-trivial and showed no marked trend but varied between years; asset inequality varied less than income inequality. We document the value of longitudinal, locally grounded indexes of well-being to obtain a granular view of micro-level changes in well-being and the possible use of inequality in the consumption of calories and macronutrients as a valid proxy for income inequality in rural areas of the Global South with tenuous links to the market economy