Youth Employment and Training Programs The YEDPA Years (1985) / Chapter Skim
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7 Effectiveness of Temporary Jobs Programs
7 Effectiveness of Temporary Jobs Programs
Pages 137-160
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From page 137... ...
Two were designed primarily for in-school youths: the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) and the Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects (YIEPP)
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From page 140... ...
The interpretation of the program effects therefore varies. For example, the finding with respect to employment is that the likelihood of employment is 111 percent higher among VICI participants than among "controls." This finding implies that for a participant whose probability of employment was 0.5 prior to the program the probability would be about 0.68 after participating; one whose employment probability was 0.9 prior to participating would have ~ probability of 0.95 of being employed after participating in the VICI program.
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From page 141... ...
The involvement of union journeymen as crew supervisors turned out to be particularly helpful in job placements because of the journeymen's knowledge of the informal labor market and their contacts; their referrals and recommendations carried more weight than comparable activities by CETA job developers. Although an evaluation of the long-term program effects is ruled out by the small sample size and limited follow-up period, the study does attempt a benefit-cost analysis of the program from a societal point of view.
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From page 142... ...
Supported Work sought to inculcate participants with the necessary work habits, desire for employment stability, skills, etc., for future labor market success; these were to be achieved through subsidized work experiences that would be gradually more demanding and approximate regular unsubsidized employment. Three aspects distinguish the Supported Work program: (1)
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From page 143... ...
The fact that experimentals had longer job tenure than controls because of program participation had no impact on postprogram employment rates, hours of work, or wage rates (Table 7.3~. Statistically significant program gains in hours of work during the period of actual participation tended to be larger among younger participants, females, whites, the more educated, those who left school because they wanted a job, those living with their parents, those
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From page 144... ...
While net costs were found to be quite sensitive~to the method of estimating the value of output and project costs, none of the alternatives reversed the benefit-cost result .3 Overall, the evaluation study appears to have been very careful in its attention to conditioning factors, random assignment, and the use of appropriate statistical techniques. We are therefore confident in the stated finding of no postprogram effect for the severely disadvantaged youths who participated in Supported Work.
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From page 145... ...
. After controlling for various individual characteristics, private sector participation continued to be associated with higher postprogram employment rates.
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From page 146... ...
Table 7.5 summarizes the research design and results of the evaluations of those programs. Summer Youth Employment Program The objective of SYEP was to provide economically disadvantaged youths (14- to 21-year-olds)
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From page 149... ...
The overall imputed favorable effect of SYEP on school attendance varied by cluster. SYEP appeared to be particularly successful in this regard for nondisadvantaged 17-year-old black males, and particularly unsuccessful for 15- to 16-year-old disadvantaged white males.
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From page 150... ...
We reviewed two attempts to estimate displacement in the Summer Youth Employment Program; one (Zimmerman, 1980) relied on data collected from personal interviews with program operators, and one (Crane and Ellwood, 1984)
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From page 151... ...
The study by Crane and Ellwood takes an entirely different approach. The authors used unpublished data from the Current Population Survey for the 12 largest states for 1972-1978, for the months of April, July, and October, in order to measure employment by race and age group, and unpublished program data for SYEP placements by race and age for the same states over the same time period.
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From page 152... ...
The longer-term goal was to improve life-cycle labor market outcomes as a result of staying in school and receiving work experience (Farkas et al., 1984~. In all there were 17 demonstration projects across the country, and more than 70,000 youths participated.
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From page 153... ...
This group was also selected because it was believed that older youths had already made career decisions prior to being aware of the program and that this would contaminate pure program effects. In addition, the program participation rates of older youths were lower than those for the younger group, e.g., through summer 1980 cumulative participation rates were 66 percent among 15- to 16-year olds and 46 percent among 17- to 20-year olds.
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From page 154... ...
Comparable earnings effects during the summer periods vary between 48 and 65 percent. During operation, the entitlement program significantly lowered unemployment rates and raised employment and labor force participation rates for young blacks as well as for all youths.
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From page 155... ...
During the postprogram period in the fall of 1981, labor force participation rates of the full youth cohort were higher than those of the comparison group, but unemployment rates were not significantly different. Among young black eligibles)
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From page 156... ...
(1983) did by comparing the employment rates in the pilot sites with those in the comparison sites during the period of program operation for similar age-race groups and then dividing the differences in employment by the number of entitlement jobs in the pilot sites to measure net job creation displacement.
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From page 157... ...
It is therefore difficult to see how to extract results on postprogram effects that are generalizable to the nation as a whole. The estimated postprogram effects of the entitlement program vary considerably across demographic subgroups as well as sites.
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From page 158... ...
SUMMARY The evaluations of temporary jobs programs consistently found evidence that in-program earnings and employment were higher as a result of the program. The findings of the Summer Youth Employment Program evaluation tentatively suggested in-program gains in employment, but we have only limited confidence in the evaluation.
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From page 159... ...
The estimated in-program effects on labor market outcomes other than employment rates and earnings were variable among the programs and for different target groups within most of the programs. The entitlement program significantly lowered unemployment rates and raised labor force participation rates for all eligibles in the young cohort.
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From page 160... ...
The studies of temporary jobs programs that we examined were not very encouraging about the goal of raising school attendance rates, lowering drug abuse, or reducing negative encounters with the criminal justice system. With respect to school retention, the summer jobs program evaluation offered questionable evidence in support of increased school participation.
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