Can welfare conditionality combat high school dropout?

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I EIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Based on administrative data, we analyze empirically the effects of stricter conditionality for social assistance receipt on welfare dependency and high school completion rates among Norwegian youths. Our evaluation strategy exploits a geographically differentiated implementation of conditionality. The causal effects are identified on the basis of larger-thanexpected within-municipality changes in outcomes that not only coincide with the local timing of conditionality implementation, but do so in a way that correlates with individual ex ante predicted probabilities of becoming a social assistance claimant. We find that stricter conditionality significantly reduces welfare claims and increases high school completion rates.JEL Classification: H55, I29, I38, J18

Integrating Immigrants into the Nordic Labour Markets

“…In recent years, many countries have introduced or strengthened the activation requirements in their social insurance programmes, making benefits con-ditional on participation in activities such as community work or training programmes (Røed 2012, OECD 2013. In Section 5, we build on two studies of a reform of the Norwegian social assistance programme (Hernaes et al 2017, Bratsberg et al 2018a) and discuss the role of activation policies and present new empirical evidence on the impacts of activation requirements on employment and social insurance reliance among immigrants. The analysis is based on a staggered local implementation of stricter activation requirements, such that we can use a difference-in-differences strategy to identify causal effects.…”

“…Since the mid-1990s, the Norwegian social assistance programme has undergone reforms toward more intensive use of conditionality and activation, such that means-tested social assistance is paid out conditional on participation in some form of activation like community work or participation in job-training programmes (see Gubrium et al 2014 andHernaes et al 2017). This reform process has primarily been targeted at young welfare clients, but it has also singled out immigrants as a prioritized group.…”

Hvordan påvirker økt bruk av vilkår for sosialhjelp sysselsetting og lønnsfordeling?

“…På tross av at mottakere av sosialhjelp ofte er brukere av og i målgruppen for flere av NAVs områder, er det lite forskning på virkningen av vilkår knyttet eksplisitt til sosialhjelp. Imidlertid finnes et nylig unntak: Hernaes, Markussen og Røed (2017) ser på virkningen av økt bruk av vilkår på sosialhjelpsmottak og fullføringsgrad på videregående skole blant 21-åringer i perioden [1993][1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010]. De finner at økt bruk av vilkår gir faerre mottakere av sosialhjelp og flere som fullfører videregående skole innen 21 års alder.…”

Aktivisering av unge sosialhjelpsmottakere – forutsetninger for å sikre overgangen til arbeid

“…Forskning viser at arbeidsrettede tiltak og aktiviteter i stor grad bidrar til at unge sosialhjelpsmottakere kommer i arbeid (Dahl og Lima 2016;Hernaes, Markussen og Røed 2016). Likevel viser statistikk at slike tiltak ikke er blitt brukt i tilstrekkelig grad i kommunene (Dahl og Lima 2016).…”

“…Noe forskning underbygger positive effekter av å stille betingelser for utbetaling av sosialhjelp (Hernaes, Markussen og Røed 2016). Samtidig viser Dahl og Limas undersøkelse at effekten av aktivitetsvilkår avhenger av hvordan vilkårene praktiseres og hvilken type aktiviteter som tilbys (2016:127).…”