Young people's schooling trajectories and transitions to social adulthood in the context of Brazil's Bolsa Família

Abstract

As cash transfers have become key tenets of social protection systems in the global South, much effort has gone into evaluating their outcomes. Less attention has been paid, however, to young beneficiaries’ experiences of cash transfers and the contextualised and differentiated impacts on their lives at the micro-level. Based on a qualitative study of young recipients of Brazil's Bolsa Família programme, this article explores the factors that shape young people's schooling trajectories. The article demonstrates the complexity of young people's lives vis-à-vis the CCT policy model; particularly, how their trajectories do not conform to its linear logic, but rather reflect a more complex interaction of gender norms and social and economic inequalities. The tension between the linearity of the policy model and these differentiated and gendered trajectories in turn complicates how young people navigate the transition to social adulthood, by marking out ‘problematic’ vs ‘successful’ transitions and trajectories.

A qualitative evaluation of a conditional cash transfer programme in Mexico: recipients’ perspectives of long-term results

“…It has been reported elsewhere in the literature that the aspirations of CCT programme recipients can be exceedingly high and lead to tensions between expected and realised outcomes (Jones, 2019). This study did not appear to present similar findings with many seeing education and Prospera in general as the best way for their children to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, which is a key element in the programme too.…”

“…The repetitive aspiration to 'be somebody' with a degree of significance in society and self-worth is regularly evoked with a desire to achieve a white collar position such as 'manager' or 'professional' (Jones, 2019). An aspiration to attain careers in traditionally white collar employment is consistent in the literature among young people living in poverty (Jeffrey et al, 2004;Crivello, 2011).…”

“…Educational investments are key to the human capital-based Prospera design and it appears that respondents have also internalised the importance of education into their aspirations of breaking intergenerational poverty and social mobility. It has been argued that the CCT-based discourse which emphasises the importance of education as key to moving out of poverty is overly simplistic (Jones, 2019). However the respondent's adoption of the same rhetoric and discourse shows that they do indeed have a deep understanding of the programme's longer term objectives.…”

Job Matching for Youth in Asia and the Pacific

“…Some have suggested that the concept of transitions creates false binaries, for example, between education and work, or youth and adults. Alternatives aim to be more in line with the nonlinear reality of youth, such as "critical moments" or "vital conjectures" (Jones 2022). In this report, the concept of transitions is considered instructive and valuable when understood in terms of the complexity, multiplicity, and nonlinear nature of young people's trajectories into, back into, and within the labor market.…”

Política pública para la población adulta mayor e impacto de la Pensión Asistencial del Programa «Bono de Desarrollo Humano» en Ecuador

“…3.2.1 Análisis conceptual sobre los programas de transferencia monetaria Los programas de PTM se inscriben dentro del amplio campo de los sistemas de protección social, así como de las políticas sociales y se han convertido en una pieza clave en el sur global (Jones, 2022). Consisten en la entrega de recursos monetarios y no monetarios a ciertos grupos en situación de vulnerabilidad y pobreza como: familias con hijos menores de edad, adultos mayores, personas con discapacidad, y otros grupos, establecidos de acuerdo con los lineamientos institucionales de cada país.…”