Abstract:
The Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is a weekly cash transfer paid to 16- to 19-yearolds from poorer households in full-time non-university-level education. The EMA was first introduced as a pilot scheme in 15 local authorities (LAs) in England in 1999, before being expanded to an additional 40 LAs in 2000. It was rolled out nationwide in 2004 and cost around £900 million per year across the UK by 2010 (in 2023-24 prices). Although it was scrapped in England in 2011, it remains in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. While a large government-funded evaluation of the EMA assessed the short-run impacts of the pilot phase of the programme, this report estimates the effect of the 2004 national roll-out of the EMA on both the short- and longer-run outcomes of eligible students. Using detailed administrative data, we explore the effect of the EMA on educational outcomes, earnings, employment and criminal behaviour. Primarily for data reasons, we focus on England and on students who were eligible for free school meals. Institutional differences between the countries of the UK and changes in the economic environment since the mid 2000s mean that our results may not reflect the effects of the current live versions of the policy in the devolved nations, although in our view they can still inform the debate on these programmes.