Getting Back into the Labor Market: The Effects of Start-Up Subsidies for Unemployed Females

Marco Caliendo and Steffen Künn ()

No 6830, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: A shortage of skilled labor and low female labor market participation are problems many developed countries have to face. Besides activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences for flexible working hours, discrimination), this is a difficult task, and the question arises whether active labor market policies (ALMP) are an appropriate tool to do so. Promoting self-employment among the unemployed might be promising. Starting their own business might give women more independence and flexibility in allocating their time to work and family. Access to long-term informative data allows us to close existing research gaps, and we investigate the impact of two start-up programs on long-run labor market and fertility outcomes of female participants. We find that start-up programs persistently integrate former unemployed women into the labor market and partly improve their income situations. The impact on fertility is less detrimental than for traditional ALMP programs.

Keywords: female labor force participation; evaluation; start-up subsidies; long-term effects; fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 H43 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2012-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Journal of Population Economics, 2015, 28(4), 1005-1043

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Related works:
Journal Article: Getting back into the labor market: the effects of start-up subsidies for unemployed females (2015)
Working Paper: Getting back into the Labor Market: The Effects of Start-up Subsidies for Unemployed Females (2012)
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