Africa, using national survey data from 1993.<sup>4</sup> The question is whether the gender of a transfer recipient matters for child outcomes. While pension recipients are unlikely to be parents of little children, about one-third of pension recipients live with children, typically their grandchildren. Duflo (2000) finds in households where there is a woman receiving an old-age pension compared to households where no one receives a pension, girls have better anthropometric status (weight for height and height for age).<sup>5</sup> More specifically, girls in households with a women receiving the pension have 1.19 standard deviations larger weight for height. Interestingly, the effect is only significant in households where the pension recipient is the mother of child's mother, whereas there is no effect for paternal grandmothers. There is also no significant effect of a man receiving a pension.

Atkin (2009) uses Mexican data to study the effect of mothers' employment in manufacturing on children's height for age. To identify causal effects, geographic variation in the opening of new factories at the time a woman enters the labor market is used. The study finds that child health outcomes improve for mothers who end up working in manufacturing due to a new factory opening: their children are between 1.18 and 1.75 standard deviations taller than children whose mothers did not have their first job in manufacturing. One shortcoming of this study is that male and female income shares within the household are not observed, so that it is not possible to separate between a general household-level income effect and an effect that is specific to female income.

# **2.3  Randomized Cash Transfer Programs**

Several studies have analyzed on the effects of the PROGRESA program in Mexico (Attanasio and Lechene 2002, Rubalcava, Teruel, and Thomas 2009, and Bobonis 2009). PROGRESA is a conditional cash-transfer program that makes transfers to mothers as long as their children meet certain criteria such as keeping up on immunizations and attending school. The introduction of PROGRESA was randomized, so that causal effects can be isolated. However, randomization took place only in terms of which families received the benefit, but not in terms of who in the family received the transfer (all transfers were given to women). This complicates the identification of gender effects, but attempts are made to separate the effect of a larger female budget share from a simple income effect due to the transfer.

The studies find that in households that receive the transfer compared to households that have the same after-transfer income but did not receive the transfer, the share of income spent on children's clothing is higher. Attanasio and Lechene (2002) find that an increase in the female income share of 10 percentage points is associated with an increase in the expenditure share of girls' clothing by 12 percent and of boys' clothing by 6 percent. In contrast, higher female income is associated with a lower share of spending on alcohol. The results regarding food expenditures are mixed and depend on the regression specification (see also Rubalcava, Teruel, and Thomas 2009). Similar to Attanasio and Lechene (2002), Rubalcava, Terual, and Thomas (2009) also find a positive effect on the budget shares of children's clothing as well as education. Bobonis (2009) exploits random variation in rainfall as an instrument for earned income to separate the effect of a

> 4Burns (2005) gives an overview of South Africa's pension system and the literature on the gender dimension of its effects.

> 5See also Duflo (2003) for more details.

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