Can demographic targeting alter short-term fertility decisions? The effects of humanitarian assistance on the fertility behaviour of Syrian refugees in Turkey

Turkey, as the country with the highest number of refugees, is currently home to 3.6 million Syrians who had to flee their country due to the conflict that started in 2011. Since December 2016, refugees from all nationalities in Turkey can apply for the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN), the largest humanitarian program ever funded by the European Union. ESSN is an unconditional cash transfer program that targets households using demographic criteria to select the most vulnerable among those who are forcibly displaced and, in 2021, ESSN had a total of 1.7 million beneficiaries. Two out of six of these demographic targeting criteria were directly or indirectly affected by the total number of children in the household, which were a dependency ratio equal to or greater than 1.5 (i.e., 3 children and 2 parents) and having at least 4 minor children. These criteria are questioned based on whether families were encouraged to have more children to become beneficiaries. In this research, we compare the fertility rates, fertility calendar, and birth order of children of ESSN beneficiaries and ineligible applicants by using propensity score matching. Our results show that the existence of the ESSN targeting criteria does not encourage ineligible households to have more children in order to become eligible for the ESSN. It can, however, encourage households to have children more quickly than they would otherwise.