Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Gender Equality, Community Divisions And Autonomy: The Prospera Conditional Cash Transfer Program In Chiapas, Mexico, Óscar F. Gil-García

Human Development Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the gender equality component of Prospera, a conditional cash transfer program in Mexico that provides cash contingent on three nodes of civic engagement: health, nutrition and education. This article draws on ethnographic research in La Gloria, a settlement of indigenous Mayan refugees from Guatemala in the Mexican state of Chiapas. I identify the Prospera program’s neoliberal features, the impact its gender equality measures have in the lives of women, their families, and in the political structure of the community of La Gloria. My findings reveal how Prosperareinforces gender and racial hierarchy, fosters community divisions that …