Abstract
Due to lack of well-developed insurance and credit markets, rural families in Ethiopia are exposed to a
range of covariate and idiosyncratic risks. In 2005, to deal with the consequences of covariate risks, the
government implemented the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), and in 2011, to mitigate the
financial consequences of ill-health, the government introduced a pilot Community Based Health Insurance
(CBHI) Scheme. This paper explores whether scheme uptake and retention is affected by access
to the PSNP. Based on household panel data and qualitative information, the analysis shows that
participating in the PSNP increases the probability of CBHI uptake by 24 percentage points and enhances
scheme retention by 10 percentage points. A large proportion of this effect may be attributed to explicit
and implicit pressure applied by government officials on PSNP beneficiaries. Whether this is a desirable
approach is debatable. Nevertheless, the results suggest that membership in existing social protection
programs may be leveraged to spread new schemes and potentially accelerate poverty reduction efforts
Original language | Undefined/Unknown |
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Pages (from-to) | 133-141 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Social Science & Medicine |
Volume | 176 |
Issue number | March |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 23 Jan 2017 |
Research programs
- EUR-ISS-EDEM