An Evaluation of the Impact of the Educational Conditions of Brazil’s Bolsa Família Program, 2005

This paper analyzes the impact of the educational conditions of Brazil’s Bolsa Família (BF) Program on the school dropout rates of children benefiting from the program. The main hypothesis is that a child who lives in a household that receives the benefit has a lower chance of dropping out of school. Data used are from the 2005 Impact Evaluation of the Bolsa Família Program (AIBF), collected by the Ministry of Social Development and Combating Famine (MDS), Brazil. Logistical models estimated the chances of children dropping out of school between 2004 and 2005, for three different household income thresholds, taking into account information about the household, mother, child, and BF benefit. For households with a maximum per capita income of 50 Brazilian Reais, the program was responsible for reducing the probability of dropping out by 57 percent. For households with a per capita income threshold of 100 Brazilian Reais, the official maximum value for eligibility into the BF Program in 2005, the likelihood of dropping out from school was reduced by 34 percent as a result of participating in the program. For households with a per capita income of up to 200 Brazilian Reais, the BF Program reduced the probability of dropping out by 33 percent.