concentrating first on associations with changes in expenditure on social cash transfers results from table panel a suggest that ceteris paribus many social cash transfers frequently share no real clear and systematic association with changes in relative child poverty rates over time given a certain level of pretransfer child poverty produced by market earnings changes in per head spending on unemployment benefits on parental leave benefits on family allowances on social assistance and on other cash benefits share no clear and significant association with changes in the relative child poverty rates only three social expenditure programmes share an association with changes in child poverty rates table panel a