An early evaluation of the Punjab Female School Stipend Program, a conditional cash transfer, shows that the enrolment of eligible girls in middle-school increased in the short term by nearly 9 percentage points. This paper uses regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference analyses to show that five years into the programme implementation positive impacts do persist. Beneficiary adolescent girls are more likely to progress through and complete middle school and work less. There is suggestive evidence that participating girls delay their marriage and have fewer births by the time they are 19 years old. Also, girls who are exposed to the programme later-on, and eligible for the benefits given in high school, increase their rates of matriculating into and completing high school. Lastly, there is no evidence that the program has negative spill-over effects on educational outcomes of male siblings.
The positive impacts of the FSSP on educational attainment suggest that the programme may have important implications for future productivity and welfare of beneficiaries. For instance, women in Punjab that complete middle and high school live in households that enjoy up to 30 percent higher consumption per capita, relative to women with less than middle school education. One possible reason is that more educated women are able to marry men who have almost twice as much education as the husbands of women with less education. Another explanation is that higher schooling may enable Pakistani women to increase their own earnings by as much as 150 percent. This estimated annual income increase more than compensates for the annual stipend cost of the programme.
Finally, the impacts of the FSSP may have further dynamic effects on other dimensions. Women in Punjab with middle and high school education have around 1.8 fewer children than those with less education by the end of their reproductive life. It is also estimated that the 1.4-year delay in marriage attributed to the programme may lead to 0.4 fewer births by the end of the women’s childbearing years. Furthermore, the evidence also shows that these women not only have fewer children but also invest more in their human capital, which may lead to positive intergenerational effects.
