Children in Uganda. Photo by Enrique Bazan.
If sponsors of needy children in foreign countries have ever
worried that their assistance was assuaging their conscience more than
improving the recipient’s living standards, new research led by Bruce Wydick,
University of San Francisco economics professor, suggests that sponsors can set
those fears to rest.
A long-time child sponsor himself, Wydick, along with fellow
researchers Paul Glewwe, an economist at the University of Minnesota, and
doctoral economics student Laine Rutledge, of the University of Washington,
decided to try to quantify the impact of child sponsorship after learning there
was a dearth of prior research.
“It all started because I had sponsored different children
since college and wanted to see if it worked, but there was almost no empirical
research,” Wydick said.
By studying the adult lives of previous sponsored children and comparing them with their siblings
who were too old to be eligible for the program, Wydick’s research concluded
that child sponsorship increased formal education levels by nearly three
years from a base of 8.37, raises the probability of formal employment to 72
percent from 55 percent, and increases the likelihood of white collar
employment to 31 percent from 19 percent.
Sponsorship also decreased teenage marriage and childbearing and the probability of living in a house with a dirt floor, while increasing the probability of community and church leadership involvement and the likelihood that an individual's house had electricity. More modest findings indicated that adults who benefited
from child sponsorship also lived in better-built houses, were more likely to
use mosquito nets (as a means to ward of disease, such as malaria), and smoke
and drank less.
“It's exciting to see something that, when subject to a
rigorous empirical test demonstrates an
unequivocally positive impact on life outcomes in a number of areas,” Wydick
Popularized in the 1980s as a means of sparking individuals
in rich countries to support impoverished citizens in the developing world,
child sponsorship programs rely on monthly donations of between $25-$40 to help
pay for the basic necessities, education, and medical care of individual
children. Sponsors typically receive a photo and description of the child they
are sponsoring, along with a description of their situation and needs. Some
even exchange letters.
With an estimated $3.2 billion being remitted annually to
help about 8.36 million internationally sponsored children, Wydick sampled more than 10,000 adults in Bolivia, Guatemala, India, Kenya, the Philippines, and Uganda who were formerly sponsored children, their siblings who were
ineligible for child sponsorship due to age, and neighbors who did not
participate in child sponsorship.
“Our best estimates suggest that former child sponsorship
resulted in approximately a $23 to $27 increase in monthly income (contingent
on employment) from a basis of $112.80, or about a $9.40 increase per month per
additional year of schooling,” Wydick said.
Wydick recently presented his findings to an audiences at the World Bank and the Pacific Conference for Development Economics at the University of California Berkeley.