TY - JOUR T1 - The Effect of Quarantining Welfare on School Attendance in Indigenous Communities JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour DO - 10.3368/jhr.1218-9909R2 SP - 1218-9909R2 AU - Deborah A. Cobb-Clark AU - Nathan Kettlewell AU - Stefanie Schurer AU - Sven Silburn Y1 - 2021/09/09 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2021/08/31/jhr.1218-9909R2.abstract N2 - We identify the causal impact of quarantining welfare payments on Aboriginal children’s school attendance by exploiting exogenous variation in its rollout across communities. We find that income quarantining reduced attendance by 4.7 percent on average in the first five months. Attendance eventually returned to its initial level, but never improved. The attendance penalty does not operate through changes in student enrollments, geographic mobility, or other policy initiatives. Instead, we demonstrate that financial disruption may be responsible for the temporary reduction in school attendance. Supplemental analysis suggests that the policy rollout may have increased family discord. ER -