This article was published in the University of Chicago Press Journals. BRAC launched its Targeted Ultra-Poor (TUP) program in 2002 to address ultra-poverty in Bangladesh using an asset transfer approach combined with multifaceted training over a two-year period. Evidence on long-term employment trajectories are, however, limited and it is crucial to understand whether the program truly has a transformative long-term income effect. We evaluate the long-term impact of TUP on employment using difference-in-differences techniques on panel data from a 9-year period (2002–2011). We confirm earlier findings of the positive short-term TUP impact: participants are more likely to switch from less productive occupations such as maids, begging, day-labouring to entrepreneurship (up 10 percentage points) and are generally maintained to the medium-term. In the long term, however, a substantial proportion of participating households, especially those starting as beggars or maids, those without adult sons, and those headed by males are switching back to their lower-income baseline occupation, causing the long-term impact to be smaller (a 5 percentage point increase). This finding puts some doubt on the strong claims that have been made about the sustainability of these comprehensive anti-poverty programs and calls for further research on the causes for this reversal and the extent to which it is found in other settings.
Authors: Misha, Farzana A; Raza, Wameq A; Ara, Jinnat; Poel, Ellen van de
Type: Journal Article
Year: 2019
