Across India, 118 million adult women in 12 states now receive unconditional cash transfers from the government, making India the site of one of the world’s largest and least-studied social policy experiments. Long accustomed to subsidizing grain, fuel and rural jobs, India has stumbled into something a bit more radical: paying women to run households, bear the burden of unpaid care, and form an electorate too large to ignore. Eligibility filters vary, including age thresholds, income caps, and exclusions for families with government employees or owners of cars or large plots of land. The transfers range from 1,000-2,500 rupees ($12-$30) a month — meager sums, worth roughly 5-12% of household income, but regular. With 300 million women now holding bank accounts, transfers have become administratively simple. Women typically spend the money on household and family needs, including groceries, cooking gas, paying off small debts, and medical expenses. What sets India apart from Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia — countries with large conditional cash-transfer schemes — is the absence of conditions. The money arrives whether or not a household falls below the poverty line or not. India's quiet cash transfers revolution is still in its early chapters, but it already shows that small, regular sums — paid directly to women — can shift power in subtle, significant ways.
