Does Basic Income Support Improve Healthy Ageing? Evidence from the Government of Malawi’s Social Cash Transfer

Sudhanshu Handa, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Marwa Ibrahim, University of North Carolina
Maxton Tsoka, University of Malawi

This paper studies the long-term impact of the Malawi government’s Social Cash Transfer Program (SCTP), an unconditional transfer provided to ultra-poor, labor-constrained rural households. We use data from a randomized-controlled trial conducted from 2013-2015 plus a long-term follow-up conducted in 2021; the original control group entered the program in 2016. Using a panel of 2,033 individuals who appeared in all the survey waves, we find strong impacts of the SCTP on our three well-being indexes: objective physical health, well-being and self-reported health. These impacts are particularly large among women, who make up the majority of SCTP recipients. In 2021 these impacts disappear in the full sample, but a significant male-female difference I the treatment effect appears. Thus, in the long-term, the SCTP appears to positively impact the health of elderly women significantly more than elderly men.