The continuous treatment effect of an antipoverty program on children's educational attainment: Colombia's Familias en Accion

Educational attainment is an important element in the formation of human capital. Although many developing countries have made strong efforts to expand the coverage of education services, children in poor households still struggle to attend school on a regular basis. Human development conditional cash transfers (known as CCTs) have emerged in response to this situation in developing countries. While the effects of the CCTs are well known and widely documented, their effects in relation to educational attainment and school participation are still unclear. This paper looks empirically into the continuous treatment effects of participation length in Familias en Accion, a CCT program in Colombia. The paper focuses on the continuous treatment effects on school registration and educational attainment of participants in the program. Although initial results show a fuzzy relationship between the program outcomes and the participation length, the empirical results confirm the fact that a longer exposure to the antipoverty program led to higher school registration rates, accumulation of years of education, and lower child labor participation levels.