Giving money to the elderly is actually one of the best ways to keep kids out of poverty and help young women get ahead.
March 20, 2026
Original Paper
Non-contributory Pension Programs and Intra-household Inequality
SSRN · 6313359
The Takeaway
In Mexico, non-contributory pensions for seniors didn't just stay with the aged; the money shifted household bargaining power, significantly raising the living standards of children and women more than many programs specifically designed for those groups.
From the abstract
<p>Non-contributory pension schemes are increasingly prevalent as countries seek to combat poverty, yet their role in shaping inequality remains underexplored. This paper studies how such programs alter intra-household inequality using data from Mexican household income and expenditure surveys. The analysis first examines a local pension program in Mexico City, embedding an age-based quasi-experimental design to identify beneficiaries within a structural model of extended households. Results sho