The impact of the expansion of the bolsa família program on the time allocation of youths and their parents

Abstract

This paper evaluates the impact of the expansion of the Bolsa Família program to families with youths aged 16 to 17 years on the time allocation of youths and on the labor supply of their parents. A differences-in-differences intention to treat estimator was used to compare poor households with 16-year-old youths with households with 15-year-old adolescents before and after the expansion. The results show that granting the benefit had a positive and significant impact on school enrollment and on the decision of young people to study and work at the same time. The results evince that the impact seems to be absent in urban areas but it is quite high for youths living in rural areas. When the sample is stratified by region, positive effects were found on young people's school enrollment especially in the Northeast (in both urban and rural areas) and in the Southeast (only in the urban area). The econometric results also showed that the program hardly impacted the parents' labor supply decisions.