Journal Article
Institutionalizing Segregation

Conditional cash transfers (CCTs), the flagship modality of targeted social protection in Latin America, have become the tool of choice in poverty reduction throughout the global South, promoted as effective in enhancing human capital while smoothing consumption levels among the poor.

Mainstream economic thinking has favored targeted social protection, further promoting CCTs as effective crisis response mechanisms and as a means of welfare provision in contexts with low levels of formal employment.

More recently, however, both scholars and practitioners have raised concerns about the influence of CCTs on labor market outcomes among recipients