TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Doyle, Mary-Alice
AU  - Schurer, Stefanie
AU  - Silburn, Sven
        TI  - Unintended Consequences of Welfare Reform: Evidence from Birth Outcomes of Aboriginal Australians
        PY  - 2020/Jul/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 13543
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp13543
        AB  - Australia's 'income management' policy requires benefit recipients to spend at least half of their government transfers on essentials (e.g. food, housing). We estimate income management's impact on birth outcomes by exploiting its staggered rollout. By changing parents' consumption patterns, the policy aims to improve child outcomes. We find no evidence of this. Instead, our estimates suggest it reduced average birthweight by 95 grams and increased the probability of low birthweight by 3 percentage points. We explore the mechanisms that may explain this finding. Our study demonstrates how policies that are not carefully implemented and tested can unintentionally escalate existing inequalities.
        KW  - income management
KW  - birth outcomes
KW  - Aboriginal children
KW  - welfare reform
KW  - unintended consequences
        ER  -