Agrarian Development (Mininsterio do desevnvolvimento social e agrario-MDSA), the governing body for the PBF at the federal level, uses three broad activities to try to achieve these goals: direct cash transfer, conditionalities in the areas of health and education, and coordination with other public policies that increase socio-economic opportunities for targeted families.
In any case, federal efforts have been made to target public policies at PBF beneficiaries. In the context of the ‘Brazil without extreme poverty’ plan (Brasil seem Miseria-BSM) launched in 2011 and coordinated by the former Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (Ministirio do Desenvolvimento Social e Combate a Fome — MDS), various social programs began to prioritize assistance for these families. For example, The National Programme for Access to Technical Education and Employment (Pronatech), established in October 2011 was coordinated with the BSM, and openings in professional training courses targeted young people and adults under the PBF — with guidance from teachers and the adaptation of course material to promote learning among low-income populations. In this manner, called Pronatech BSM, 600,000 PBF beneficiaries enrolled in the courses, of which 66% were women. In case of extreme poverty, in 1992 the percentage of families of African descent in extreme poverty was 30%, approximately 15% in 2002, and reduced to 1.3% in 2014, which points to an important development in the reduction of inequalities for this social group.
The Pronatech has broadened the opportunities for social inclusion, professional development, and incursion to former labor markets. Between 2011 and 2014, the program’s audience involved women, those of African descent, and youth for the most part. Of the population formally enrolled in education, 53% of the women were of African descent and 45% were between 18 and 29 years of age. As far as the Single Registry goes by 2014, 88% of all families registered in the countries social programs were run by female heads, 73% were families of African descent and run by women. In the context of housing, women represent about 80% of all contacts signed in the My House, My Life program (UN women).10
The design of the PBF determines that the cash be transferred preferably to women, which is the case for 12,677,749 (or 92%) of the targeted families. Although, this is not explicitly geared toward addressing the issue of gender roles, it produces a gender bias in the program. Thus, researchers have often sought to address whether (and how) the PBF influences gender relations. A closer examination reveals that 10 years after BF, Brazil more than halved its extreme poverty — 9.7% to 4.3% of its population. Income inequality has also fallen: BF reaches 14 million households — 50 million people or about one-fourths of the population — and is widely seen as a success story. Qualitative studies have shown that regular cash transfers from the program have helped promote the dignity and autonomy of the poor. And, importantly, women account for 90% of the beneficiaries.
The modalities include a single registry called the ‘Cadastro Unico’ which covers 40% of the Brazilian population (the most vulnerable part) and has, since 2011, emerged as the axis of public policies focused on people living in poverty, used by more than 20 federal programs (Bartholo, 2016). The Cadastro Unico was the essential tool that allowed PBF to achieve these successes. It provided the basis of targeting PBF benefits, but is linked to numerous other social programs and services. It not only serves as the backbone for effective administration of the BF but also as a tool for coordinating social policy and facilitating rapid scale-up of additional efforts such as the Brasil Carinhoso program. PBF has also helped build the base for the ambitious programs such as Brasil sem Miseria and the Busca Ativa effort, include those who had been left out of these programs in the past (Wetzel and Economico, 2013).
Primarily to the woman of the house, ‘the state tends to believe women are more reliable than men’ emphasized Sergio Faust, ex-Director, Instituto Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Bartholo, 2016, n. 55). By giving women a guaranteed paycheck, however meagre, the Brazilian government aims to help them break free of bad marriages or take charge of household decisions. ‘Money empowers women’ to more likely be involved in decision-making and grants them higher self-esteem. Less women feel like they are owned. The number of households headed by women is increasing, but Brazil is one of the lowest ranked countries on global female empowerment scales. In Bolsa Familia, more women make decisions regarding their children’s schooling and their own welfare. However, the broader question is: Is the PBF truly resolving poverty or fostering a culture of dependency? The success of the program in Brazil has led to its replication in Mexico and Colombia.
Although the PBF and many other CCT programs do not explicitly focus on influencing gender relations, feminist criticism is often indicated that such programs tend to reinforce social roles traditionally played by the sexes — as the focus is on women as the primary person responsible for mediation between the program and the family, thus always stressing on their material responsibilities. This is claimed to result mainly from the definition of women as the grant holders, the conditionality requirement, and the programs’ inability to expand women’s individual choices (Molyneux, 2006; Bartholo, 2016, n. 55). In the context of the conditionalities, the feminist criticism tends to be based on the interpretation that when such conditions are met in the areas of health and education, it would lead to more time spent by women in caregiving activities, reinforcing, once again, the link between female identity and mothering (Molyneux, 2006; Bartholo, 2016, n. 55).
Second, all compliance with the conditionalities is checked through the public system in each area, for example, public health and education, where officials in each municipality verify compliance and then record and send the data to the national level. Furthermore, there is no penalty for justified failure to comply, such as illness or lack of available transportation to get to school. Finally, the family will only be removed from the PBF after repeatedly failing to comply with the conditionalities, in a process that requires the municipalities’ public social assistance to follow-up with the family (Molyneux, 2006; Bartholo, 2016, n. 55).
Therefore, as designed, the PBF does not exclusively set out to increase the amount of time women dedicate to their family as a result of the conditionalities, and there is no nationally representative data to identify to what extent this actually occurs. However, considering the effects of the PBF in reducing malnutrition and infant mortality, an alternative hypothesis is that women perceive the program as allowing them to devote less time to child care due to a possible decrease in children’s susceptibility to diseases. Additionally, such programs are concerned with keeping younger women in school, but not adult women. In particular, it is claimed that these programs provide no support for women to choose to dedicate time to more empowering productive work (Molyneux, 2006; Bartholo, 2016, n. 55).
The PBF cannot evade the criticism that it uses women as mediators between the state and the family, but it seems reductionist to interpret it simply as a materialistic program that does not offer to choices to adult women. The structural improvement of the choices available to poorest women involves access to the PBF but is not limited to it. It requires the understanding that gender equality is a long-term process of change that depends on changing public policies in various areas. Moreover, perhaps the best that PBF can offer to improve women’s living conditions and choices is its social information platform, which includes identification data about the socio-economic characteristics of almost half of the country’s population. Any other responsibility attributed to the PBF to expand women’s choices seems to be beyond the scope of its goals and mandate (Bartholo, 2016, n. 55, p. 4).
By Way of a Conclusion
PBF has substantially reduced the severity of the recipients’ poverty but brought comparably few Brazilians out of poverty completely. This is not surprising given the small amounts of money being transferred, but it represented a significant accomplishment on the path toward a Brazil that guarantees basic human needs. Bolsa Familia is cited widely as an exemplary social policy that illustrates Brazil’s commitment to social inclusion and expansion of citizenship rights (de la Briere and Rawlings, 2006). At the same time, conditional cash transfers exemplify the claim that the Brazilian democracy has succeeded in adding new programs to the social agenda that provide minimal social protection
