The "Friday effect": school attendance over the week

Using newly released detailed data on school absences, we find a “Friday effect”. Children are much less likely to attend schools in England on a Friday. We find that this pattern holds for different schools and for both authorised (mainly illness) and unauthorised absence. Furthermore, we document a social gradient in the “Friday effect” for unauthorised absences, where the effect is larger in more deprived areas. We also show the effect in secondary schools is bigger in areas with more persistent absence. Eliminating the “Friday effect” could lead to a 1.71% of a standard deviation increase in test scores and 0.8% increase in income in the longer run.