Does the Size, Timing, Duration and Frequency of Cash Transfers Matter? Evidence on Socioeconomic Empowerment among Pastoralist Women in Turkana Central, Kenya

Pastoralist women in Turkana Central Sub-County face extreme poverty, high female household headship, and very low educational attainment, despite the region having one of Kenya's highest concentrations of cash transfer coverage which is a contradiction of heavy programme presence alongside persistently low empowerment that motivated this study. Cash transfer research has traditionally treated transfers as a single, undifferentiated event, leaving little known about whether design features specifically size, frequency, predictability, and duration of enrolment, shape what the money can achieve, a gap especially pronounced for pastoralist populations whose livelihoods and power structures differ from the settled populations most literature draws on. Anchored in Kabeer's (1999) resources–agency–achievements framework, the study examined how HSNP transfer size, timing, frequency, and duration relate to three empowerment indicators: savings, household decision-making, and meal frequency. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, a stratified random sample of 342 HSNP beneficiaries yielded 240 valid questionnaires, supplemented by three key informant interviews and two focus group discussions. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and multiple linear regression; qualitative data were analysed thematically. Larger transfer amounts were significantly associated with higher savings (80.2% above Ksh2,701 vs. 53.2% at or below Ksh2,700; p < 0.001; β = 0.230, p < 0.001, R² = 0.132), as were longer participation, greater frequency, and predictable, timely disbursement (F = 10.943, p = 0.001, R² = 0.122), with untimely disbursement the strongest negative predictor (β = –0.242, p < 0.001). However, none of these features significantly predicted household decision-making or meal frequency; decision-making was already near-universal (96.7%–100%), suggesting a ceiling effect. HSNP transfers thus reliably strengthen the resource dimension of empowerment without automatically translating into agency or achievement, likely due to entrenched gender norms, transfer adequacy, and intrahousehold power dynamics. The study recommends periodic review of transfer amounts against living costs, predictable disbursement schedules, and pairing transfers with financial literacy, savings-group facilitation, and household dialogue.

cash transfers; socioeconomic empowerment; pastoralist women.

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