Working Paper Series,
IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: This article develops a theoretical model for evaluating mandatory activation of welfare recipients in complex activation programmes. The model aims to summarize and describe heterogeneous content that is difficult to comprehend because of local variations, staff characteristics, or other reasons that can blur the descriptions of the programme. Furthermore, the content can be difficult to describe due to a weak correspondence between the official rhetoric concerning a programme and what researchers discover when observing it. We use a two-dimensional variable in our study that is intended to identify essential characteristics for capturing generic components of activation programmes. We use experience from an on-site interview study and on-site observations about 18 programmes to demonstrate how the proposed model can be used to evaluate the effect of the programmes. We evaluate the effects of programme participation on income in this study while adjusting for pre-treatment confounding variables, to test the model.

Keywords: Activation; Active labour market policy; Causal inference; Programme evaluation; Unemployment; Work-first approach

JEL-codes: C14; Z18

Language: English

25 pages, October 20, 2023

Download statistics

• IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy
• Ordering Working Papers
• Home page for this series

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Ali Ghooloo ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2023_020This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:15:20.