Research organisation
Manchester Metropolitan University
Research team
Dr Will Cook, Prof. Stephen Morris
Project start date
01/07/2025
Funding
£ 136,961
Primary dataset(s) used
National Pupil Database, MoJ-DfE linked dataset
Status
Ongoing
Sectors
Education, Children’s Services
Why we funded this
The causal effect of household income and poverty on social outcomes is one of the most fundamental questions in social policy. There is a substantial amount of research linking poverty to adverse child outcomes, including involvement in violent crime. However little of this research estimates a causal relationship.
Introduced in 2017 and repealed in 2026, the two-child benefit limit, prevented families from claiming the child element of Universal Credit for any third or subsequent child. As well as being a controversial and widely debated policy, it provides a rare opportunity to examine the causal effects of reductions in household income on child outcomes.
What are the main research questions
The main research questions addressed through this study include:
- Did the Two Child Limit causally affected predictors of serious youth violence, including SEN diagnosis for Emotion, Social and Mental Health needs?
- Did the Two Child Limit causally affected total offending (convictions and cautions) by young people?
- Are there moderating factors that influence whether the Two Child Limit causally affected these outcomes?
What the analysis involves
The research will use individual-level data from the National Pupil Database to first isolate those households most likely to have been affected by the Two-Child Limit. It will then test for whether there was an impact of this policy using two quasi-experimental methods: regression discontinuity and difference in difference. Both these methods exploit the fact that the policy was implemented to affect families with a third or higher order child born on or after the 6th of April 2017, creating a sharp before and after comparison.
