Different Eligibility Approaches

312 | Revisiting Targeting in Social Assistance

Table 5.3 shows how much of the population is covered under each approach and the benefit levels given the fixed budget. Since 43 percent of the population lives in a household with a young child, the benefits are diluted to 10 percent of the poverty line. Conversely, since only 17 percent of people live with an elderly household member and 9 percent with a widow, the benefit levels increase to 25 and 45 percent of the poverty line, respectively, to exhaust the fixed budget. The higher benefit level for households with elderly members makes sense as the payments can be considered as replacing income rather than supplementing it; the even higher widow benefits might be scaled back and the budget reduced. With PMT, the households with the lowest scores receive benefits until the budget is exhausted; for geographic targeting, all households in a poor area receive benefits, and the program continues to cover new areas until the budget is met, which means that people in 185 of the 500 districts are covered. Both approaches cover 30 percent of the population.

In addition, the analyst looks at mixed methods and tiered benefits. First, because PMT scores vary by household, benefits can be tiered depending on how low the score is; two benefit levels of 29 and 12 percent of the poverty line are used. Second, the lower benefits if a universal young child grant is made can be increased to the same level as the other approaches if a rationing device is used. Two mixed methods approaches seek to do this. One applies PMT scoring to all households with young children. The other provides benefits to all households with young children in the poorest districts until the budget is exhausted (which ends up covering 367 districts). Both approaches cover 30 percent of the population with a benefit equal to 14 percent of the poverty line. The three remaining approaches are thus: • PMT with tiered benefits • PMT with children younger than age six • Geographic targeting with children younger than age six.

Table 5.3 Program Coverage and Benefit Levels under Different Eligibility Approaches

Coverage of population (%) Benefit relative to poverty line (%) PMT PMT with tiered benefits GT HH with a child < 6 Elderly

Nonelderly widows

PMT with a child < 6 GT with a child < 6

30 30 30 43 17 9 30 30

14 * 14 10 25 45 14 14

Source: Original calculations for this publication. Note: * means varies by tier, 29 for lower tier, 12 for higher tier. GT = geographic targeting; HH = households; PMT = proxy means testing.