The Effect of Gender-Targeted Transfers:Experimental Evidence from India

Abstract

Women are the primary recipients of many welfare programs around the world. This gender targeting is backed by claims that women make better consumption choices than men, but the empirical evidence is scarce. We report from an experiment designed to study the effect of such gender targeting: In each household, weekly cash transfers were randomly allocated to a man or a woman. We combine the randomized transfers with information from weekly interviews to measure the effect of targeting on the households’ economic decisions. Our precise estimates show no difference in consumption allocations or nutrition with female rather than male recipients.

Keywords: Gender, development, Transfer schemes, Public policy design