Why Some Girls Drop Out of Secondary School Despite Conditional Cash Transfers: A Mixed Method Analysis

Abstract We use a mixed methods approach to explore why some girls drop out of secondary school despite conditional cash transfers (CCTs), using quantitative and qualitative data collected during the Odisha Girls Incentive Programme, a CCT pilot in India. We estimate a quantitative discrete choice model in the first phase to identify factors that separate dropouts from non-dropouts. In the qualitative phase, we control for those factors by careful choice of case studies and conduct a ceteris paribus analysis. After accounting for socio-economic differences, we find that the girls’ agency, albeit ‘thin’ as in Klocker (2007), is crucial and may often prove to be the tipping point in enrolment decisions. This has policy implications vis-à-vis counselling strategies for dropout mitigation.