Effect of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program on Early Childhood Nutrition: the Experience of Urban Mexico

Conditional cash transfers programs are becoming increasingly popular as policy tools to bring desired changes in education and health outcomes both in developing and developed countries. While their effects on academic achievement, school enrollment and health status have been studied extensively, their impact on childhood nutrition is not well understood. Also, it is not clear whether the problem of child nutrition is intrinsically economic or it is more related to cultural and/or educational factors. In this thesis, I estimate the effect of a Conditional Cash Transfer program (Oportunidades) on early childhood (aged 0 to 47 months) nutrition, using a panel data, with two waves: 2002 and 2004, on representative households from urban Mexico. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, we find no statistical association between program participation and improvement in early childhood nutrition. One possible explanation might lie in the initial nutrition knowledge of the beneficiaries, although the program may induce to a greater calorie consumption, it does not follow a better diet. This result might be useful for the future design of programs featuring a cash transfer with similar target populations.

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