Published 25 August 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3219
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3219

Analysis

Financial incentives to promote social mobility

¹ Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, ² Hammersmith and Fulham NHS and Council, London W6 9DL

Conditional cash transfer schemes have been shown to improve health and health behaviours in poorer countries. Ian Forde and Dagmar Zeuner wonder whether a similar strategy can work in the UK

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

As part of its strategy to promote social mobility, the government is piloting a scheme of child development grants.¹ Disadvantaged families will be offered up to £200 (233; $335) as long as they attend and take up services offered by Children’s Centres, including parenting advice, liaison with job centres, and identification of children with special educational needs. The idea is modelled on the conditional cash transfer schemes from Latin America that offer disadvantaged families money if mothers attend parenting seminars, infants attend health check-ups, and other stipulations are met such as compliance with immunisation and school enrolment. Although increasingly imitated, such schemes are controversial because they explicitly intertwine social mobility with behaviour change. Some unfavourable health, education, and nutrition choices cluster with, and partly determine, socioeconomic disadvantage, and engagement with public services is thought to stimulate positive behaviour change. Conditional cash transfer schemes further assume that targeted cash incentives . . . [Full text of this article]

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