why educate someone who is just going to get married?

When the program began, under the administration of President Ernesto Zedillo, it was called Progresa. Zedillo’s successor, Vicente Fox, changed the name. Five million families are enrolled nationwide — a quarter of the country’s households, including virtually every Mexican family at risk for hunger. Seventy-three of the 134 families in Paso de Coyutla are enrolled today. Oportunidades is now the de facto welfare system in Mexico, and it marks the first time modern Mexico has had an effective anti-poverty program.

the standard left-wing argument that people are poor because of low wages, discrimination and bad schools. But the phrase has essentially become shorthand for the right-wing argument that poverty stems from the limitations of the poor and is largely impervious to outside intervention.

In Paso de Coyutla, it seemed that the culture of poverty was indeed immutable. Generations after Jesús Sánchez, the lack of interest in education, failure to think about the future, machismo and authoritarianism persisted. There was every reason to think that life would be exactly the same for Solís and Hernández’s four children.

The program gives the poor cash, but unlike traditional welfare programs, it conditions the receipt of that cash on activities designed to break the culture of poverty and keep the poor from transmitting that culture to their children.

Lo and behold, when they tried the same experiments using bone and rope toys, no endowment effect was seen. Food is vital. Toys are not.