The impact of Bolsa Família Program in the beneficiary fertility

Abstract

The Bolsa Família Program is a Conditional Cash Transfer Program that was implemented in Brazil in 2003. Since the implementation of the program some of its effects were studied, but its effects on fertility decision has drawn a little attention. The objective of this paper is to evaluate if there is an impact of Bolsa Família Program in the fertility of beneficiaries. We use the Household Sample National Survey (PNAD) for the years 2004 and 2006 and estimate the first-differences for each year, to find the average treatment effect on treated (ATT). To find comparable groups of treatment and control, we use Propensity Score Matching methods. We compared the ATT outcomes for the two years and its estimated confidence intervals and found that there are no statistical differences between the ATT results in 2004 and 2006.fertility, conditional cash transfer, propensity score, Brazi.