Active labour market policy as a socialising agent: a cross-national analysis of learning attitudes

Abstract

Most active labour market policy (ALMP) research investigates potential socioeconomic consequences such as unemployment risks and earning potential but too often neglects potential cultural effects. When approaching ALMP research based on institutional and socialisation theory, researchers would expect that people internalise cultural and normative elements from their institutional environment. This study discusses the influence of country-level ALMP training programme effort on the learning attitude of people by considering participants own educational and familial background. Only ALMP training programme effort is studied because this type of programme is directly aimed at active learning. This study presents an analysis of macro-level data from the OECD on labour market policy spending combined with micro-level data from the PIAAC, totalling 64,150 observations from 19 countries. The results show that people who have higher education credentials or have more highly educated parents have on average a more proactive learning attitude. These differences tend to be smaller in countries that put more effort in ALMP training programmes. People with less education or who have lesser educated parents tend to have a more proactive learning attitude in countries that put more effort in ALMP training programmes compared to their equals in countries that put in less effort. ARTICLE HISTORY

Examining barriers to participation in further and continuing education in Germany: Why a regional perspective is (still) important

“…Moreover, in a recent study, Luc Benda et al (2018) employed micro-level PIAAC data and macro-level OECD data to demonstrate that there seems to be a strong relationship between the extent to which adults participate in work-related continuing education and the amount of money (percentage of GDP) invested in active labour market policy training programmes that consist of open or distance education, on-the-job training, seminars or workshops, and private lessons. Thus, it is worth bearing in mind that wider societal factors also include important contextual conditions which are either conducive to or preventative of adults enrolling in a continuing education course.…”

Et nous? Étude par vignettes expliquant les préférences en matière de formation par le type de contrat et la nature des compétences visées

“…Elle accorde une place importante à la formation continue et à l'apprentissage tout au long de la vie. Même si la méthode des vignettes consiste à placer les répondants dans un scénario hypothétique afin d'atténuer l'influence d'autres facteurs (qui jouent un rôle dans la vraie vie), les préférences en matière de formation peuvent être influencées par le cadre institutionnel tel qu'il transparaît à travers des politiques du marché du travail comme le degré de protection de l'emploi ou les règles en matière de représentation du personnel ou à travers les normes culturelles en matière d'apprentissage (Benda, 2019;Bratti, Conti et Sulis, 2021;Adolfsson, Baranowska-Rataj et Lundmark, 2022).…”

Czech companies will have to deal with import of labour

“…Benda, Koster and Van Der Veen [17] point to the fact that the dependent variable is measured on a continuous scale; therefore, a suitable analytic method appears to be linear regression. Nevertheless, due to the clustered data structure, where people are clustered into countries, the basic assumption of independent observation is violated, which would result in distortion of the estimates.…”