The Long-Run Effects of Unemployment Monitoring and Work-Search Programs: Some Experimental Evidence from the U.K

Peter Dolton and Donal O'Neill

Economics Department Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth

Abstract: In this paper we examine the long-term effects of the Restart unemployment program introduced in the U.K. in 1987. The program was aimed at the long-term unemployed and involved a combination of tighter monitoring of benefit eligibility rules and increased job search assistance. We compare employment behaviour over a five-year period for members of a treatment group who participated in the scheme with those of a randomly chosen control group for whom participation was delayed. We find that those who participated in Restart had significantly shorter unemployment durations than those excluded from the program. However, our results also show that the long-run effect of postponing participation in the scheme differs by gender. While there is little evidence of a long-term benefit for women in our sample, the unemployment rate among males in the treatment group was six percentage points lower than that for males in the control group five years after the initial experiment.

Keywords: unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 1997-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://repec.maynoothuniversity.ie/mayecw-files/N710897.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:may:mayecw:n710897

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Department Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).