[9] A 2017 study found that "international child sponsorship increased monthly income by $13–17 over an untreated baseline of $75, principally from inducing higher future labor market participation.
"[10] Critics have argued that child sponsorship could alienate the relatively privileged sponsored children from their peers and may perpetuate harmful stereotypes about third-world citizens being helpless.
Concerning the organization Save the Children, the Effective altruism community generally opposes their child sponsorship as a type of donor illusion.
Givewell describes sponsorship thus:[14] Illusion: through an organization such as Save the Children, your money supports a specific child.
Instead, your contributions are pooled with those of other sponsors to provide community-based programming for all eligible children in the area.”More generally, David Roodman says that child sponsorship creates "a tension between creating the psychological experience of connection that raised money and the realities of fighting poverty".