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Prospera, a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCTs) program in Mexico, provides recipients with cash contingent on three nodes of civic engagement: health, nutrition and education. This article examines the educational component of Prospera in La Gloria, in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. I utilize gender and culture of migration theories to explore the role gender plays in the educational, employment and migration outcomes of 31 high school students, and a smaller sample that pursued post-secondary education, six years after participating in the Prospera program. My findings raise questions about the ability of Prospera to ameliorate social inequalities, foster gender equity, and economic mobility among indigenous recipient households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes aim to alleviate poverty through monetary and in-kind benefits, as well as reduce future incidence of poverty by encouraging investments in education, health and nutrition. The success of CCT programmes at reducing poverty depends on whether, and the extent to which, cash transfers affect adult work incentives. In this paper we examine whether the PROGRESA programme of Mexico affects adult participation in the labour market and overall adult leisure time, and we link these effects to the impact of the programme on poverty. Utilising the experimental design of PROGRESA's evaluation sample, we find that the programme does not have any significant effect on adult labour force participation and leisure time. Our findings on adult work incentives are reinforced further by the result that PROGRESA leads to a substantial reduction in poverty. The poverty reduction effects are stronger for the poverty gap and severity of poverty measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars, especially those located in Latin America, argue for a new rurality, one that entails changed rural-urban relations and decreasing reliance by rural residents on small-scale farming. Based on an examination of the impacts of three subsidy programs aimed at residents living near Mexico's Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, I suggest these changes reinforce a continued rural poverty. The programs include a series of "conservation-development" initiatives whose architects hoped would decrease the pressure slash-and-bum farmers placed on area forests. In addition, residents of this area participated in agricultural and school subsidies. I compare the relative impact of all these programs on household incomes and consider both the opportunities for social capital these programs represented and their role in the purported "new rurality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Mexico's Program for Education, Health and Nutrition (Progresa), as an example of neo-liberal trends influencing poverty alleviation initiatives. The stated goal of the program was to break the intergenerational cycles of poverty. This end was to be achieved by investing in the basic capacities of the poor, particularly poor women and their children. Basic capacities were to be developed through cash transfers for improved nutrition, scholarships for children, and preventative health measures. The key concern of this paper, how- ever, is to examine how cash transfers for human capital development are more than instruments of poverty reduction. Rather, cash transfers are also techniques that effect a new way of governing individual con- duct. The intended effect of Progresa was a change in the subjectivity of poor women from the passive recipients of aid to empowered market subjects who were now given the freedom to make choices, albeit limited choices. However, subjects could now also be regulated through the choices they make. The Progresa program can be said to represent a government through freedom, which in turn signals a shift from governing through the direct administration of state institutions [read "passive"I to that of governing through the "active" and responsible choices of individuals and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews Mexico's mixed track record in pursuing the Millennium Development Goals, with progress in health and education but a seemingly entrenched problem of poverty. Given that the country is one of the most equal in Latin America, the paper goes on to disaggregate the data and analysis to subgroups or regions. Regional disparities are stark in terms of education and infrastructure, as well as in poverty, with a NorthSouth divide in the country and indigenous groups worst off in terms of poverty, illiteracy levels, gender equity and basic infrastructure. Nevertheless, there are positive trends based on an assessment that shows slow but steady convergence across three variables, life expectancy, education enrollment and literacy rates. The paper recommends focus on vulnerable subgroups and regions learning from successful national programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]