# **I. Introduction**

PROSPERA was introduced in 1997 as one of the main programs of Mexico’s federal social policy.<sup>3</sup> Throughout two decades of operation, this conditional cash transfers program (CCT) consolidated as an essential piece of the social policy of the country. As of the end of 2017, it has reached a coverage of 6.6 million households (27 million people), which represents around 22.7% of the national population, with a presence in 114,000 localities in all states of Mexico, in both rural and urban areas (Presidency of the Republic, 2018). The budget of the program for that year represented 0.36% of the GDP and 21.3% of the expenditure on poverty alleviation (Presidency of the Republic, 2018).

As one of the pioneer CCT programs, PROSPERA has played a transcendental role at an international level. Its intervention model has influenced the design and implementation of various programs in all regions worldwide and, in this regard, has been key to the proliferation of CCTs, as preferred instruments in social policy.<sup>4</sup> Whereas the achievement of the program’s objectives in the short and medium term has been thoroughly studied, it has become crucial to analyze the extent to which it has reached its ultimate purpose: to contribute to the breaking of intergenerational transmission of poverty. The evaluation of the long-term effects of the program is of vital importance, not only to know to what the extent PROSPERA has achieved its objectives and ultimate purpose, but also to provide useful evidence for other CCT programs. In this context, this study seeks to contribute to this exercise through the study of the intergenerational occupational mobility of the youth beneficiaries of the program in rural areas. The analysis on this subject is considered an approximation that will contribute to our understanding of extent to which PROSPERA has achieved its ultimate objective, which is an improvement of the occupation of youths, in comparison with their characteristics of origin, encouraging the process of breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

The data from the Evaluation of Rural Households Survey (ENCEL) collected in 2017 enabled us to study the intergenerational occupational mobility and the occupational attainment process experienced by the beneficiary youths of PROSPERA two decades after the intervention began and, at a more advanced moment in their lives, in which a greater proportion of them has entered the labor market and achieved a more stable labor status. Based on a quantitative analysis, which uses the ENCEL 2017 as the main source of data, the objective of this study is to provide answers to two sets of research questions:

1. What are the characteristics of the intergenerational occupational mobility in the rural youth beneficiaries? Do differences by sex, ethnic background or migratory status exist? What is the

> 3 Throughout its history, the program has been named Program of Education, Health and Nutrition (Progresa), Oportunidades Human Development Program (Oportunidades) and currently Prospera, Social Inclusion Program (PROSPERA). The name PROSPERA will be used in this paper, except for those occasions in which it is more appropriate to use the name corresponding to a specific historic period.

> 4 Currently, there are 64 similar social programs in different regions of the world (World Bank, 2018c: 37).

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