Seminario The Impact of Scouting on School Absences and Crime Rate: Evidence from England

Abstract

Scouting is one of the largest and most enduring youth organisations worldwide, representing a systematic investment in human capital and socio-emotional development for millions of young people across generations. Exploiting the staggered geographic expansion of Scout and Girlguiding group openings across England between 2006 and 2024, I estimate the impact of neighbourhood-level Scouting exposure on school absenteeism and local crime using a difference-in-differences design. The opening of a Scout group reduces unauthorised absences by 11 percent and persistent absenteeism by 22 percent relative to the never-treated mean, with effects emerging gradually and strengthening over time, consistent with a mechanism operating through the accumulation of behavioural norms and peer networks. Violent offending falls by 8.6 percent, with reductions concentrated in offence categories disproportionately associated with juvenile perpetration. The analysis operates at the Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) level, capturing community-wide spillovers rather than individual participation effects, implying that the estimates represent lower bounds on the total social returns to Scouting. These results demonstrate that large-scale civic youth organisations generate measurable improvements in educational engagement and public safety, contributing to the literatures on human capital formation, structured time use, and neighbourhood effects.