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Cash transfers, maternal depression and emotional well-being: Quasi-experimental evidence from India’s Janani Suraksha Yojana programme

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  • Powell-Jackson, Timothy
  • Pereira, Shreya K.
  • Dutt, Varun
  • Tougher, Sarah
  • Haldar, Kaveri
  • Kumar, Paresh

Abstract

Maternal depression is an important public health concern. We investigated whether a national-scale initiative that provides cash transfers to women giving birth in government health facilities, the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), reduced maternal depression in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh. Using primary data on 1695 women collected in early 2015, our quasi-experimental design exploited the fact that some women did not receive the JSY cash due to administrative problems in its disbursement – reasons that are unlikely to be correlated with determinants of maternal depression. We found that receipt of the cash was associated with an 8.5% reduction in the continuous measure of maternal depression and a 36% reduction in moderate depression. There was no evidence of an association with measures of emotional well-being, namely happiness and worry. The results suggest that the JSY had a clinically meaningful effect in reducing the burden of maternal depression, possibly by lessening the financial strain of delivery care. They contribute to the evidence that financial incentive schemes may have public health benefits beyond improving uptake of targeted health services.

Suggested Citation

  • Powell-Jackson, Timothy & Pereira, Shreya K. & Dutt, Varun & Tougher, Sarah & Haldar, Kaveri & Kumar, Paresh, 2016. "Cash transfers, maternal depression and emotional well-being: Quasi-experimental evidence from India’s Janani Suraksha Yojana programme," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 210-218.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:162:y:2016:i:c:p:210-218
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.06.034
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    2. Roelen, Keetie & Saha, Amrita, 2021. "Pathways to stronger futures? The role of social protection in reducing psychological risk factors for child development in Haiti," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    3. McGuire, Joel & Kaiser, Caspar & Bach-Mortensen, Anders, 2020. "The impact of cash transfers on subjective well-being and mental health in low- and middle- income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis," SocArXiv ydr54, Center for Open Science.
    4. Jose Cuesta & Mario Negre & Ana Revenga & Maika Schmidt, 2018. "Tackling Income Inequality: What Works and Why?," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 26(1), pages 1-48, March.
    5. Mary Kopriva, 2023. "Universal Cash Transfer Impacts on Maternal and Infant Health," Working Papers 2023-02, University of Alaska Anchorage, Department of Economics.
    6. Christopher Strader & Joanna Ashby & Dominique Vervoort & Aref Ebrahimi & Shoghi Agbortoko & Melissa Lee & Naomi Reiner & Molly Zeme & Mark G Shrime, 2020. "How much is enough? Exploring the dose-response relationship between cash transfers and surgical utilization in a resource-poor setting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-12, May.
    7. Aizawa, T.;, 2019. "Reviewing the Existing Evidence of the Conditional Cash Transfer in India through the Partial Identification Approach," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/24, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.

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