New York is searching for new ways to fight persistent poverty. To encourage families to participate in these programs, the mayor hopes to recruit private donors to provide parents with a cash incentive to make the right choices for their children, sure they stay in school and sending them to visit health care providers.
The idea is based on a highly successful Mexican antipoverty program, set up in 1997 and known as Oportunidades, which is now being tried by at least 25 other countries. The purpose of this program is to promote education, improve health care, health maintenance, and better nutrition among Mexico’s rural families living in extreme poverty. The program provides education grants, nutritional supplements, education on hygiene(卫生) and nutrition, and cash transfers for food to mothers in participating villages.
Today the program covers one in four Mexican families, helping virtually all the poor families in the country. Families are sent a bimonthly check if their children regularly attend school in grades three through nine; the amount varies from about $ 10 a month in third grade to $135 for girls in ninth grade. Girls in secondary school are paid 15% more than boys because girls have a higher dropout rate.
Families are also given a grant to buy school supplies, and a monthly food subsidy if they get medical checkups, immunizations (免疫)and health education lectures. The education grants are substantial, about two thirds of what secondary students would receive for full time work. The payments start after third grade and go through high school, rising each year as dropout rates get higher and a child’s forgone (放弃的) earning potential is higher. Because checks go directly from the central government to mothers whose families meet the requirements, administrative costs and the chance of corruption are reduced.
Oportunidades is effective because it addresses a root cause of low school attendance and child labor low family income. The main determinant of whether children work or attend school, both across countries and across families, is family income. Oportunidades raises family income and reduces the cost of attending school.
In Para. 3, it is implied that ______.