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Unconditional cash transfers and child schooling: a meta-analysis

Published in Empirical Economics, 2024

Various “demand-side” interventions have been found effective empirically to increase student participation in developing countries. There are growing rigorous evidence on schooling impacts of unconditional cash transfers, but few to none have systematically reviewed the literature. This paper fills the gap through applying a meta-regression analysis to 38 studies of 22 programmes in 18 countries. We find unconditional cash transfers improve both student enrolment and attendance, and the result is robust to the exclusion of studies with a high risk of bias. We also find statistically significant heterogeneity in effect sizes across studies. However, none of the moderators in this paper, namely transfer size, whether the programme is pilot, income per capita, and poverty head headcount ratio, explains the variation in effect sizes. Our paper adds support to the need of more evaluations on schooling impacts of unconditional cash transfers and how tweaks in programme designs could make a difference.

Recommended citation: Chong, Z.Z. and Lau, S.Y. (2024). Unconditional cash transfers and child schooling: a meta-analysis. Empirical Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-024-02647-3 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00181-024-02647-3

How do Malaysian university students form social ties

Published in ISIS Malaysia, 2024

This research note studies the determinants of four types of social ties between Malaysian university students using two sets of complete network data, one from a public university and one from a private university. Statistical analysis of the social networks reveals that ethnic, gender and language homophily have a significant effect on social-tie formation. That is, students of the same ethnicity, who speak the same language or who identify as the same gender are more likely to form social ties with each other. However, these effects differ between the public and private university social networks and according to the type of social tie. Further analysis of the factors that moderate ethnic homophily suggests that speaking Bahasa Malaysia reduces the tendency to form same-ethnicity social ties while growing up in a district with a higher concentration of residents of the same ethnicity enhances this tendency. These findings expand the evidence base showing that ethnic and language homophily are important factors that shape social-tie formation and highlight language and geography as important factors to consider in formulating policies for social cohesion.

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Interethnic friendships under ethnically segregated education pathways in Malaysia

Published in , 2025

Ethnic homophily in plural societies leads to ethnic segregation and the perpetuation of social inequalities. The Contact Hypothesis posits that intergroup contact can reduce prejudice and improve interethnic relations. This paper examines how intergroup contact in national schools and the lack thereof in ethnically homogenous schools affects the extent of homophily in the friendship networks of Malaysian university students. Malaysia offers a unique context to study interethnic relations in a plural society due to ethnic segregation in education pathways. Utilising moderation analysis of the ethnic homophily terms in an egocentric exponential random graph model (ERGM), I find evidence that attending national secondary schools, is associated with lower levels of ethnic homophily. On the other hand, attending ethnically homogenous schools do not amplify homophilic tendencies. These findings suggest that friendship formation at university is affected by experiences in both primary and secondary school, implying that contact effects are enduring.

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