Conclusion

This chapter has analysed the impact of the first year of EMA on post-16 participation in education using a series of matching and regression techniques. These techniques have allowed the overall impact of EMA to be shown, and also its impact on a number of sub- groups of policy interest. The modelling has also allowed an examination of a number of policy issues, including the comparative effectiveness of the different variants being piloted. Finally the analysis has attempted to take into account the fact that staying-on rates may differ between pilot and control areas for a host of reasons, unobserved in the survey data, but which may be important for assessments of the impact of EMA. The possible size and

direction of biases arising from these unobserved differences were the subject of the final section of this chapter, and some revised estimates have been described.

• The first set of results used one-way matching techniques to show the overall impact of EMA on participation in post-16 full-time education, as well as how this impact varies between urban and rural areas, between males and females, and between those with differing levels of eligibility for EMA. The results of this section show that EMA has a significant impact on post compulsory full-time education participation of those eligible for the EMA of between three and eleven percentage points. These effects tend to be larger for males than females.

• The next set of results used regression analysis to estimate the effects on participation in education of each extra one pound per week of EMA offered. Using this model has allowed an assessment of the differential impact of the four EMA variants which have been piloted. Each additional pound of EMA has a significant incremental effect on education participation and there is also evidence that the more generous weekly payment under variant 2 and more generous bonus under variant 4 result in even higher participation. At this stage no significant difference has been found between variant 3 where it is paid to the mother and the other variants where it is paid directly to the child.

• The final results tested the robustness of these estimates by using several two-way matching techniques. These techniques allowed further unobserved differences between pilots and controls which may affect educational participation, (referred to as ‘area specific effects’), to be taken into account. Such effects might include differences

robustness checks do not provide a clear-cut picture of the size and direction of possible area specific effects but it appears likely that the overall impact of the EMA may be somewhat higher than the results presented in the first two sections imply.

These findings cover just one aspect of the first phase of the evaluation of the EMA. Further data to be collected and refinements to the analysis discussed in this report mean that these findings must be regarded as interim only. Indeed, while all of the results reported from the one-way matching are found to be statistically significant, at least at the five per cent level, it is important to remember that the true effect of EMA could differ from that found in year one of the evaluation.

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