Bolsa Familia reduces likelihood of child marriage, but not in extremely poor families, study finds

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A study published in the Revista Brasileira de Economy, by the Getulio Vargas Foundation, points out that the most intense effect of the program is for girls between 16 and 18 years old who are from poor families, but not extremely poor. Single Registry Forms Reproduction/EPTV One of the effects of the Bolsa Família program is to reduce the probability that girls from poor families will marry before the age of 18, according to a survey published in April by the Revista Brasileira de Economy, of the Getulio Foundation Vargas. According to the United Nations, child marriage is a formal or informal union in which at least one of the parties is under 18 years of age. Therefore, the study verified the effect of Bolsa Família on child marriages. The intensity of this effect varies according to some of the girls’ social characteristics. The strongest effect of the program is on women between the ages of 16 and 18 who are from poor, but not extremely poor, families. Bolsa Família does not change much the data of girls from extremely poor families and younger people in poverty, points out the research (see below the intensity of the program’s effect on different social groups). Around 3,000 families were analyzed and matched based on their profile for the survey. The results The most significant results of the study were the following: Poor families: the possibility of a daughter between 16 and 18 being married is 10.19 percentage points lower if the parents receive Bolsa Família. Extremely poor families: the study shows that girls aged 16 to 18 in this income range do not change their behavior when they receive the benefit. Younger girls Poor families: possibility of a daughter between 12 and 18 years old being married is 3.52 percentage points lower if parents receive Bolsa Família. Extremely poor families: possibility of a daughter between 12 and 18 years old being married is 2.84 percentage points if parents receive Bolsa Família. The financial incentive behind child marriage Often, the decision to marry too young is related to the family’s income level, explain the study’s authors, Andressa Mielke Vasconcelos and Marcelo de C. Griebeler, from the Federal University of Rio Grande do South. If a daughter of a poor family marries, the parents have one less mouth to feed, says economist Griebeler. In extremely poor families, more daughters marry because the value of the benefit, although representative for the families, is not enough to lift them out of extreme poverty (the study was carried out with data from 2019, when the average value of the Bolsa Família was about R$200). But for girls from less poor families, the money from the program allows daughters the freedom to decide whether they want to leave home very young or prefer to stay longer, economists say. That is: there is an income level above which the family has enough money, and an extra mouth does not represent such a significant expense, according to the study. Immediate savings versus future gains By the logic of the study, the possibility of not having more expenses with a daughter is an immediate economic incentive for families to want them to get married, but if the parents had more money, they would probably postpone the moment of marriage. marriage. There is also a question of future earnings: if a girl is going to start her own family, she tends to study less, and therefore have less earnings in the future. This is a problem that affects poor countries the most (according to the organization Girls Not Brides, around 40% of girls in the poorest countries were married in childhood or adolescence). In absolute numbers (that is, when the size of the population is not taken into account) Brazil has the fifth largest number of marriages in which at least one of the members of the couple is under 18 years of age. The study The two economists used two methods to assess the effect of Bolsa Família on child marriage: one called “nearest neighbor” and another called “genetic matching”. In practice, they compared families that receive Bolsa Família with families that do not, and then compared data on marriages. The researchers used data from the 2019 National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), which allows identifying which families report receiving the benefit from the program. At the end of that year, the program served approximately 13.2 million families. Marriage before the age of 18 Officially, the minimum age for marriage in Brazil is 18 years old, but according to the 2002 Civil Code, at 16 it is possible to marry if there is consent from parents or guardians. In 2019, a law was passed to prohibit the marriage of minors under 16, but until then there were some exceptions in the law, such as marriage in case of pregnancy. The study also took into account informal unions – that is, whether a girl has gone on to form her own family, even if she is not officially married.

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