Government of Malawi's unconditional cash transfer improves youth mental health
Government of Malawi's unconditional cash transfer improves youth mental health
复制标题
马拉维政府的无条件现金转移改善了青年的心理健康
DOI：
10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.01.037
复制
发表时间：
2019-03-01
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Palermo, Tia
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Angeles, Gustavo;de Hoop, Jacobus;Palermo, Tia
我们探讨马拉维针对超贫困家庭的国家无条件现金转移计划对青年心理健康的影响。实验结果表明，该计划显著改善了心理健康结果。特别是在女孩中，该计划将抑郁症的迹象减少了约15个百分点。我们调查了不同可能的途径对总体计划影响的贡献，包括教育、健康、消费、照顾者的压力水平和生活满意度、感知到的社会支持以及参与艰苦和令人不快的工作。这些途径解释了项目影响的46%到65%，促进了我们对经济干预如何影响资源匮乏环境中年轻人的心理健康的理解。研究结果强调，作为撒哈拉以南非洲国家社会保护制度的一部分，无条件现金赠款的使用规模越来越大，有可能改善青年的心理健康，从而可能有助于打破贫穷和心理健康不良的恶性循环。
We explore the impacts of Malawi's national unconditional cash transfer program targeting ultra-poor households on youth mental health. Experimental findings show that the program significantly improved mental health outcomes. Among girls in particular, the program reduces indications of depression by about 15 percentage points. We investigate the contribution of different possible pathways to the overall program impact, including education, health, consumption, caregiver's stress levels and life satisfaction, perceived social support, and participation in hard and unpleasant work. The pathways explain from 46 to 65 percent of the program impact, advancing our understanding of how economic interventions can affect mental health of youth in resource-poor settings. The findings underline that unconditional cash grants, which are used on an increasingly large scale as part of national social protection systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, have the potential to improve youth mental wellbeing and thus may help break the vicious cycle of poverty and poor mental health.