Effects of a parenting and unconditional cash transfer intervention on child development and maternal well-being in urban Bangladesh: medium-term follow-up of a cluster randomised controlled trial.
Sheikh Jamal Hossain, Syed Moshfiqur Rahman, Sabbir Hossain et al.
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In 30 seconds
This medium-term follow-up of a cluster randomised controlled trial in Rangpur, Bangladesh, compared parenting plus unconditional cash transfers with cash transfers alone. Mothers and children were followed five years after the one-year parenting intervention, when children were aged 6.2 to 8.4 years; 555 of 599 enrolled dyads participated. The combined intervention showed no benefit for the primary outcome, child IQ (effect size = 0.11; 95% confidence interval = -0.04, 0.27). Benefits were observed for reading, home stimulation, mothers’ childcare knowledge, depressive symptoms, and empowerment, but these secondary findings were considered hypothesis-generating.
Key findings
- There was no benefit for child IQ: effect size = 0.11; 95% confidence interval = -0.04, 0.27.
- Compared with cash alone, the combined intervention benefited children’s reading skills, but not mathematics skills.
- Benefits were observed for home stimulation, mothers’ childcare knowledge, depressive symptoms, and empowerment.
- No benefits were found for mothers’ violence exposure or quality of life.
Why it matters
The follow-up suggests that some developmental and maternal benefits of adding parenting support to cash transfers may persist into school age, even though the primary cognitive outcome did not improve. The distinction between the null primary outcome and positive secondary outcomes is important: the latter may inform future research but, as the authors note, should be treated as hypothesis-generating rather than definitive evidence.
What to keep in mind
Positive findings were for secondary outcomes and are hypothesis-generating; the primary outcome, child IQ, showed no benefit.