Conditional Income Transfer and Poverty Reduction: The Crossroads of the Bolsa Família Program for Economic and Social Emancipation

Abstract

The Bolsa Família Program is a Brazilian conditional cash transfer program, identified by the World Bank as one of the most efficient cash transfer models in the world. The purpose of this article is to report the results of a survey that investigated the program's capacity to reverse the intergenerational cycle of poverty in Brazil. The focus of the research, qualitative in the method, exploratory in the purpose, used documentary research and data collection, oriented to contribute to the process of evaluation of public policies and, above all, to the improvement of a social program of proven effectiveness. The research revealed that the absence of a great "exit door" from the program tends to perpetuate exactly what the program intended to eradicate, making it a program that mitigates the adversities of the economic need of the beneficiary families, but with a reduced capacity to promote economic and social emancipation.