Kids or Courses? Gender Differences in the Effects of Active Labor Market Policies
University of St. Gallen Department of Economics Discussion Paper No. 2007-08
37 Pages Posted: 23 Apr 2007
There are 2 versions of this paper
Kids or Courses? Gender Differences in the Effects of Active Labor Market Policies
Date Written: April 2007
Abstract
This paper investigates active labor market programs in Austria with a special emphasis on male-female effect heterogeneity. On average, we find only small effects, if any, for most of the programs. A crucial advantage of the large and informative administrative data we use is that it provides records about pregnancies and times of parental leave, in addition to the information that can typically be found in European administrative data sources used for evaluating active labour market policies. We show that these variables play a key role in removing selection bias and defining outcome variables which may explain why other similar studies found such programs to be more effective for women than for men. In particular for younger women a key effect of the programs is to reduce or postpone pregnancies and to increase the attachment to the labor force. After taking into account gender specific selection effects and the effects of the programs on pregnancies, gender differences (almost)disappear.
Keywords: Active Labor market policy, matching estimation, program evaluation, panel data
JEL Classification: J68
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Characterizing Selection Bias Using Experimental Data
By James J. Heckman, Hidehiko Ichimura, ...
-
Propensity Score Matching Methods for Non-Experimental Causal Studies
By Rajeev H. Dehejia and Sadek Wahba
-
Propensity Score Matching Methods for Non-Experimental Causal Studies
By Rajeev H. Dehejia and Sadek Wahba
-
Using the Longitudinal Structure of Earnings to Estimate the Effect of Training Programs
By Orley Ashenfelter and David Card
-
Causal Effects in Non-Experimental Studies: Re-Evaluating the Evaluation of Training Programs
By Rajeev H. Dehejia and Sadek Wahba
-
Nonparametric Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Under Exogeneity: A Review
-
The Role of the Propensity Score in Estimating Dose-Response Functions
-
Does Matching Overcome Lalonde's Critique of Nonexperimental Estimators?
By Jeffrey A. Smith and Petra Todd