Can cash incentives lead to positive outcomes for teens?

Using a randomized control trial research design, MDRC is conducting an evaluation of the Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards program. Implemented in 2007, this program offered monetary incentives to families living in poverty for education, health, and workforce participation and job-training activities, with the ultimate goal of breaking the cycle of poverty. In MDRC's most recent report, researchers examine how parents and their teenage children were affected by Family Rewards two years into the program. Their analyses focus on the differences between a treatment group and control group in areas such as time use, mental health, and risky behaviors, as measured by surveys. 

Findings of their study show that Family Rewards:

• Changed how teenagers spent their time. For a subgroup of academically proficient teenagers, it increased the proportion of those who engaged primarily in academic activities and reduced the proportion who engaged primarily in social activities;
• Increased parents' spending on school-related and leisure expenses and increased the proportion of parents who saved for their children's future education;
• Had no effects on parents' monitoring of their teenage children's activities or behavior and did not increase parent-teenager conflict or teenagers' depression or anxiety;
• Had no effects on teenagers' sense of academic competence or their engagement in school, but substantially reduced their self-reported problem behavior, such as aggression and substance use;
• Did not reduce teenagers' intrinsic motivation by paying them rewards for school attendance and academic achievement.