Cooking from a New Recipe: Progresa and Bolsa Família with Gender Equality Goals

This chapter presents the first sequence of the CCT trajectory: its creation separately and almost simultaneously in Mexico and Brazil. The parallel analysis of the two cases demonstrates how in the process of cooking from existing and new ingredients, policymakers were able to include gender equality goals in the design of Progresa while their Brazilian counterparts were not quite so successful. The chapter begins with a brief contextual and historical account of the social policy legacies in both countries. An analysis of gendered social policy legacies and venues, strategic (gender equality) entrepreneurs, and knowledge on gender in the process of cooking Progresa (1997) and Bolsa Família (2003) shows that power relations and institutional legacies were more favorable to gender equality in Mexico than they were in Brazil. Nevertheless, Bolsa Família’s designers cooked a CCT recipe with attention to gender inequalities and implicit gender equality goals. Therefore, among the outcome for both is the inclusion of gender equality goals in CCT designs.