Cash transfers that feed equality

Cash transfers to women help boost diets and shrink gender gaps, but don't alter babies' growth outcomes, finds a new study conducted in Jharkhand. Sanjeeb Mukherjee reports

- Sanjeeb Mukherjee reports

The Haryana cabinet last week approved the Deen Dayal Laado Laxmi Yojana, under which all eligible women in the state will receive monthly assistance of ₹2,100 from September 25, fulfilling a key election promise of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). With this, Haryana becomes the 15th state to launch, or promise to launch, a scheme for monthly direct cash transfers to women in recent years.

According to a recent assessment by The Economist, India has seen a remarkable surge in cash transfer programmes targeted at women, rising from virtually zero in 2018 to 0.6 per cent of GDP by 2024. These schemes now reach more than 130 million women across the country.

While several studies and reports have examined the impact of cash transfers on women, including their voting behaviour, a new working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research—titled "Maternal Cash Transfers for Gender Equity and Child Development: Experimental Evidence from India"—sheds further light on the effects of unconditional transfers on women's well-being.

The paper, authored by Jeffrey Weaver, Sandip Sukhtankar, Paul Niehaus, and Karthik Muralidharan, studied the impact of unconditional cash transfers to new mothers in India through a large-scale randomised evaluation. It found that households receiving transfers saw a 9.6–15.5 per cent increase in calorie intake for mothers and children, along with gains in nutrient consumption. Gender disparities in food consumption narrowed.