Beyond attendance: gendered impacts of a cash transfer for education and the unpaid care burden in rural Morocco

This paper capitalises on a randomised cash-transfer intervention implemented in rural Morocco between 2008 and 2010 to shed new light on the interplay between household inequality, as driven by gender and unpaid care work (UCW) dynamics, and children’s schooling. The study explores the effect of the cash transfer on school progression and UCW, including analyses of how effects vary by gender and time spent on UCW prior to intervention implementation. Results suggest that the intervention increased the likelihood of girls progressing through grades on time by approximately 6 to 10 percentage points, while it had no discernible effect for boys’ timely grade progression. Nonetheless, among girls the benefit of the treatment on timely grade progression was halved for each additional hour of UCW prior to intervention implementation, and the transfer proved ineffective in lessening the care burden. Taken together, findings suggest that – as a result of the intervention – girls performing UCW were staying in school more but were less likely to progress on time relative to their counterparts not engaged in UCW. Insights from this research shed light on whether promoting gender equitable opportunities within the household might enable children to follow a more regular school path.