Social Safety Nets and Gender: Learning from Impact Evaluations and World Bank Projects

The main goal of SSN interventions is to reduce current and future poverty by increasing household income and consumption and improving children’s health and education. However, SSNs also impact many other outcomes— employment, fertility, domestic violence, access to resources—and those impacts are typically gender-specific. This systematic review analyzes the available impact evaluation evidence on the effect of SSNs on gender-related results such as increasing women’s bargaining power and decision-making, improving education outcomes of boys and girls, and promoting maternal and child health. The review also analyzes gender integration in the World Bank’s portfolio of SSN interventions.