Devolution has led to policies diverging across the UK. Nowhere is this more apparent than in post-16 education. The Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) was introduced UK wide in 2004 to support young people in low-income households to overcome barriers to continuing in education. The EMA was abolished in England at the end of the 2010/11 school year. Thus, creating contrasting environments between low- and high-income households within England, and low-income households in the different UK nations. Similarly, university tuition fees, while initially set at the same low level across the UK in 1998, went on very different trajectories across the UK nations. The changing policy landscape has created different environments for young adults that vary over time by household income and nation.
These differing policies may lead to different financial pressures resulting in variations in mental health and life decisions. Difference-in-differences methods will use diverging policies across the UK nations to estimate the consequences that the changes in EMA and tuition fee polices have on young people’s wellbeing and employment outcomes. Given that the EMA was explicitly introduced to reduce inequalities in attainment, this project will provide insights into how the different devolved governments might best allocate resources to support young people in order to reduce inequalities in health and educational achievement. It may also provide a template which can be used to evaluate other policies past, present and future that may vary across the devolved nations.
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