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When TOMS worked with an outside research team to evaluate the impact of its shoe donations, the researchers were unable to find a way in which the shoes had much of a substantive impact on poor kids' lives. The kids liked the shoes, and used them to play outside a little more often.
But there was no significant improvement in their school attendance or self-esteem. In fact, the data suggested that receiving the shoes caused the children to spend a bit less time on homework. Perhaps because they were too busy playing outside? It also made the children slightly more likely to feel dependent on outside aid — a learned dependency that can be damaging. Similarly, when researchers ran a study in Nepal that handed out free period supplies to poor girls, that didn't improve their school attendance.
The hard truth is that people's problems are almost always a lot more complicated than just the lack of an inexpensive consumer item. Poor girls do often miss school during their periods, for example, but that doesn't mean their problem necessarily comes down to a lack of hygiene supplies. They might be staying home because they're in pain, or because their schools lack private bathrooms, or because their communities believe that women should stay in seclusion while they're menstruating.
Problems like girls' lack of access to education or the cycle of poverty just tend to be complex. So trying to solve these problems with consumer goods often does not actually solve the real problem.
And worse, it perpetuates a stereotype of poor people as helpless and passive — after all, if an inexpensive item can transform their lives but they're just waiting for a charity to provide it, then how much agency could they have? That attitude is a problem, not just because it's incorrect and insulting — though it is — but also because it can fuel programs and policies that are much more harmful than just handing out some shoes or menstrual pads.
Instead of giving shoes, why not give poor people cash? If shoes are really what the recipients need, then they can go ahead and buy them.
But if not, their options are wide open: They can put the money toward medicine or a crop loan or school fees. Or they can use it to invest in some kind of income-generating venture, such as livestock or a small business. If you give shoes to a kid, then at least you know the kid has shoes. Take, for instance, a recent study by Columbia political science professor Chris Blattman.
He and his team ran an experiment that gave poor women in northern Uganda cash to start small businesses. One group got cash plus expert advice on starting a business, but a comparison group got cash alone. After a year, both groups were doing better.
Part of the point of the experiment was to see if the benefits of the expert advice outweighed the costs of bringing them on. It did not: Over the period that the study measured, the program would have achieved a greater impact if it had skipped the experts and handed out the extra cash to recipients. Likewise, the charity GiveDirectly has seen very positive — and efficient — results from its programs of directly sending cash.
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