Children's health opportunities and project evaluation: Mexico's oportunidades program

Children's health opportunities and project evaluation: Mexico's oportunidades program? Dirk Van de gaer† Joost Vandenbossche‡ Jose Luis Figueroa March 2011, preliminary version Abstract We propose a methodology to evaluate social projects from an (equality of) oppor- tunity perspective by looking at the effect of the program on (parts of) the distribution of outcomes conditional on morally irrelevant characteristics, taken here to be parental education level and indigenous background. The methodology is applied to evaluate the effects of Mexico's oportunidades program, the world's largest conditional cash transfer program for poor households, on children's health outcomes. The evidence shows that the most disadvantaged children, children from indigenous background, tend to benefit from the program. For poor children from non-indigenous background, the evidence is mixed. Keywords: project evaluation, opportunities, oportunidades program. JEL classification: I18, I38, D63 ?We thank Bart Cockx for his suggestions on the empirical methodology and Jean-Yves Duclos for showing how to incorparate the survey design in the bootstrap procedure. We gratefully acknowledge comments on a preliminary version received at the GREQAM-IDEP workshop “The Multiple Dimensions of Equality and Fairness” (Marseille, 17 November 2010), the OPHI workshop “Inequalities of Opportunities” (Oxford, 22-23 November 2010) and the UAB workshop “Equality of Opportunity and Intergenerational Mobility” (Barcelona, 17 December 2010).

• program
• circumstances between
• when comparing
• cumulative distribution
• conditional
• between children
• dominance
• health
• distribution functions