Unjust Conditions
Women's Work and the Hidden Cost of Cash Transfer Programs
Download Url(s)
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/30158/1/649692.pdf---
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/30158/1/649692.pdf
---
https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/30158/1/649692.pdf
Author(s)
Patricia Cookson, Tara
Language
EnglishAbstract
Unjust Conditions follows the lives and labors of poor mothers in rural Peru, richly documenting the ordeals they face to participate in mainstream poverty alleviation programs. Championed by behavioral economists and the World Bank, conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are praised as efficient mechanisms for changing poor people’s behavior. While rooted in good intentions and dripping with the rhetoric of social inclusion, CCT programs’ successes ring hollow, based solely on metrics for children’s attendance at school and health appointments. Looking beyond these statistics reveals a host of hidden costs for the mothers who meet the conditions. With a poignant voice and keen focus on ethnographic research, Tara Patricia Cookson turns the reader’s gaze to women’s care work in landscapes of grossly inadequate state investment, cleverly drawing out the tensions between social inclusion and conditionality.
Keywords
peru; behavioral economics; development; poverty; rural; gender; inclusion; conditional cash transfer; ethnography; Cajamarca; Care work; LimaISBN
9780520969520Publisher
University of California PressPublisher website
www.ucpress.eduPublication date and place
Oakland, 2018Classification
Development studies
General and world history
Gender studies, gender groups