SHARE SPACE Do child grants lead to increased pregnancies? An evidence view from Asia and the Pacific

Despite strong evidence showing that broad-based cash transfers targeting pregnant women and young children reduce poverty, improve health, nutrition and education and increase economic growth, concerns are often raised among policymakers that these payments may increase incentives to have children, in order to gain or maintain program eligibility. There is already evidence from cash transfer programming in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa to dispel this narrative (Handa et al. 2018), this paper looks to discuss this issue based on evidence from the Asia and Pacific region.