Events

Conditional cash transfers: are they an effective way to reduce child poverty?

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15 January 2009

1:00pm-2:30pm
ippr, 30- 32 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7RA

Download the recordings from this session:

Part 1 (Larry Aber)
Part 2 (Caroline Abrahams)
Part 3 (Q&A)

In the last decade several countries in Latin America, South Asia and Africa have developed a new form of social assistance designed to relieve poverty and break the intergenerational cycle of disadvantage. Conditional cash transfers provide cash to very poor households on the condition that parents meet a set of requirements such as ensuring their child attends health check-ups and goes to school.

Although there is nothing new about attaching conditions to benefits, CCTs potentially offer an attractive approach by increasing financial support for families in poverty and rewarding parents for their role in raising their children rather than for other activities, such as employment.

CCTs are now being piloted in New York under an initiative set up by Mayor Bloomberg. And here in the UK, child development grants are being piloted in ten local authorities to encourage poor families to use childcare and other services provided by Children’s Centres.

But while they encourage increased use of services, do CCTs really improve children’s outcomes? And are they effective in changing patterns of behaviour that will alter intergenerational patterns that are often linked to disadvantage?

Speakers

Larry Aber is Professor of Applied Psychology and Public Policy at New York University and a Visiting Professor at the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at Oxford University. He is an internationally recognised expert in child development and social policy. In 2006 he was appointed by the Mayor of New York City to the Commission for Economic Opportunity, an initiative to reduce poverty in the city. This initiative has led to a pilot of CCTs now being undertaken in New York.

Caroline Abrahams is Programme Director, Children and Young People at the Local Government Association where she leads on the children’s and young people’s board and issues relating to the DCSF. Caroline was previously Director of Public Policy at NCH Action for Children.

Please contact events@ippr.org to reserve a place.