Being Seen by the State: Cash Transfers and Women’s Participation in Pakistan

• In Event: Cash Transfers and Subsidies in Developing Democracies and Indigenous States (Recorded)

Abstract

What are the consequences of receiving cash transfers for citizens who have been excluded from political participation in new democracies? Can gender-targeted social policies increase women’s and civic participation in settings where poverty and gender gaps in participation are high? This paper addresses these questions by analyzing the electoral consequences of one of the largest unconditional cash transfer (UCT) programs targeted at women in the Global South: The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP). BISP is Pakistan’s largest social safety net, and the first social welfare program in the country to use a technocratic form of targeting known as a proxy means test (PMT). The paper presents findings from an original citizen survey of 2254 respondents in four districts. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, I compare the political behavior of program recipients and non-recipients close to the eligibility cutoff. The paper finds that the receipt of a BISP cash transfer decreases beneficiaries’ reliance on traditional intermediaries such as landlords and increases their support for gender-targeted welfare policies. I argue that the BISP cash transfer program has generated important legibility effects for female welfare recipients, by allowing them to gain a degree personal autonomy from traditional rural patrons and raising their expectations about the role of the state. However, this reduction in reliance on traditional intermediaries and change in attitudes has not resulted in female welfare recipients’ pursuing civic engagement or claim making. This paper provides new evidence of the long-term political effects of gender targeted cash transfers in a setting with large gaps in women’s civic and political participation.

Author

• Rehan Rafay Jamil, Brown University