Impact of the Bolsa Familia Program on Children and Adolescents Educational Level
This study aims to analyze the impacts of the Programa Bolsa Família (PBF) on educational indicators for Brazilian children and adolescents aged six to seventeen. The methodology used to investigate the impacts of the PBF was the Propensity Score Matching method according to data from the 2019 National Continuous Household Sample Survey. The results of the impact of the PBF indicated that beneficiaries are more likely to attend school and less likely to fall behind in school and drop out. It was also possible to observe that the program shows a greater impact on the older-age group, boys, non-whites and students from rural areas in relation to school attendance and dropout. Regarding the results of the impact on school delay, they are also higher for the older-age group, especially for girls, in the Central-West and Northeast regions and in the rural area. Thus, there is confirmation of the hypothesis that the PBF has impacts on educational indicators, improving the performance of its beneficiaries. The contribution is the analysis of the impact of the current PBF, after sixteen years of its implementation, the results of the work suggest the relevance of the cash transfer program as, in the absence of the PBF, school evasion and delay would be at levels even bigger.
