Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) are an endogenous innovation from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) that aims to reduce current poverty while developing the human capital of the next generation, in the attempt to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Pioneered in Brazil and...

Social assistance programs are intended to improve people's well-being. However, that goal is undermined when eligible people fail to participate. Reasons for non-participation can include inertia, lack of information, stigma, the time and "hassle" associated with applications and program...

This paper provides an overview of the political and economic context under which Mexico’s Progresa-Oportunidades was introduced to prelude the emergence of social assistance in Latin America. The paper identifies four distinctive features of the programme that were revolutionary in their own...

Social assistance receipt among immigrants in relation to receipt among natives in Sweden is investigated. A background of how the system is constructed is provided, statistical information reported, the literature surveyed and key results interpreted. Most out-payment for social assistance in...

Seguro Popular (SP) was introduced in 2002 to provide health insurance to the 50 million Mexicans without Social Security. This paper tests whether the program has had unintended consequences, distorting workers' incentives to operate in the informal sector. The analysis examines the impact of...

The study examines distribution and impact of the transfers directed by definition to thelow income population (hereafter: the social assistance). During the period observedboth the volume and the number of recipients increased considerably. Those benefits appeared to be fairly effective as a...

The volume presents a series of theories and models of social assistance, focusing on methodological elements. Seen as an intervention on a social system (individual-family-community) in dysfunction, the social assistance model proposed by the author favors change theory, the client individually...

This work is intended as a guide to encourage mothers to confront the difficulties inherent in the life of a parent. Not infrequently, childbirth is associated with the uncertainty, related to some disturbances in the psychological and social life of young mothers. And all this is caused by a...

The main objectives of social assistance benefits, including poverty alleviation and labor-market or social reintegration, can be seriously compromised if support is difficult to access. While recent studies point to high non-take-up rates, existing evidence does not make full use of the...

Since the end of 2007, countries in Central Asia have been struck by two major consecutive shocks: the food and fuel price increase in 2007-08, and the global economic and financial crisis that began at the end of 2008. Households, both poor and not poor, are directly and adversely affected by...