UTEP Assistant Professor Published in Latin American Journal

Last Updated on October 14, 2019 at 12:00 AM

Originally published October 14, 2019

By UC Staff

UTEP Communications

Mexico’s antipoverty conditional cash transfer (CCT) program has increased political and civic participation in the country, according to Gregory S. Schober, Ph.D., assistant professor of rehabilitation sciences at The University of Texas at El Paso.

An article by Gregory S. Schober, Ph.D., UTEP assistant professor of rehabilitation sciences, was recently published in the Latin American Research Review. Schober’s article “Conditional Cash Transfers, Resources, and Political Participation in Latin America,” examined the effects of government cash transfer programs on civic and political participation in Latin America, particularly in Mexico. Photo: UTEP Communications

Schober’s article “Conditional Cash Transfers, Resources, and Political Participation in Latin America,” examined the effects of government cash transfer programs on civic and political participation in Latin America, particularly in Mexico. The article was recently published in the Latin American Research Review.

In CCT programs, poor households receive a monetary transfer in exchange for fulfilling certain conditions, such as attending health checkups and health education workshops and having the children attend a certain percentage of school days.

Schober found that conditionalities—the health and education conditions that program beneficiaries must meet in order to continue receiving the cash transfers—boost civic skills and political and civic participation in Mexico.

“The article is timely, in that earlier this year Mexico transformed its cash transfer program by eliminating most conditionalities, including all of the health conditionalities,” Schober said. “These conditionalities were in place for over 20 years in Mexico. More broadly, there is a fierce debate going on throughout the Global South on whether to utilize conditional vs. unconditional cash transfer programs.”

Schober started as an assistant professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences in 2019. Schober’s research interests include health policy, political and civic behavior, and global health politics. He is the coauthor of published articles in Political Behavior, Journal of Development Studies, and other journals.

Read his article in the Latin American Research Review.