Cash, Culture and Constraints: Why Conditional Transfers May Fail to Delay Early Marriage

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes are aimed at improving human capital outcomes by linking financial incentives to behaviours, such as school enrolment and early marriage. This article evaluates the causal impact of Kanyashree Prakalpa—a large-scale CCT in West Bengal, India, intended to reduce early marriage by encouraging girls’ secondary education and above. Using data from the National Family Health Survey and a difference-in-differences design exploiting geographic and temporal variation in programme exposure, we find no evidence that the programme reduced early marriage rates. Instead, the probability of marriage before age 18 increased by 8 percentage points in the post-Kanyashree Prakalpa period, rising to 13 percentage points among girls from poorer households. These findings suggest that, in the absence of structural change, standalone financial incentives may have limited effectiveness in delaying early marriage. The results highlight the limits of CCTs when sociocultural norms and economic precarity distort programme incentives.