Assessing Youth Labor Market Interventions: Past, Present and Future
Paper Session
Sunday, Jan. 9, 2022 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (EST)
- Chair: Amy Ellen Schwartz, Syracuse University
Do Youth Employment Programs Work?
Abstract
We study the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) – the first and largest youth training program in the U.S. in operation between 1933 and 1942 – to provide the first comprehensive assessment of the short- and long-term effects of means-tested youth employment programs. We use digitized enrollee records from the CCC program in Colorado and New Mexico and matched these records to the 1940 Census, WWII enlistment records, Social Security Administration records, and death certificates. We find that enrollees who spent more time in CCC training grew taller, lived longer lives and had higher lifetime earnings as a result of their participation in the program. We also find modest increases in the educational attainment of the participants and increases in short term geographic mobility. In contrast, we find no evidence that their labor force participation or wages increased in the short run. To assess the internal and external validity of the results, we compare our estimates to those derived from a randomized evaluation of Job Corps, the modern version of the CCC, conducted in the 1990s. The RCT’s results show that our empirical strategy delivers estimates that are in line with the experimental estimates. Overall, we find significant long-term benefits in both longevity and earnings, suggesting short and medium-term evaluations underestimate the returns of training programs, as do those that fail to consider effects on longevity.The Effect of Letters of Recommendation in the Youth Labor Market
Abstract
Summer youth employment programs aim to support young people’s labor market prospects, but experimental evaluations show no improvements in average employment outcomes. This paper tests whether information frictions in the youth labor market constrain the impact of these training programs. We survey supervisors about the performance of over 69,000 SYEP participants in New York City, then generate and provide letters of recommendation to a randomly selected subset. Early results show that being sent a recommendation letter increases employment by 4.4 percent over 1 year, with cumulative 2-year employment rates rising by 2 percent. Earnings also rise by about 4 percent over 2 years, but results are less precise. To explore whether effects are driven by supply- or demand-side responses, we invited 4,000 participants from both treatment and control groups to apply for a short-term online job. There are no significant differences in application rates between groups, nor in whether an applicant checked a box to be considered for a higher-paying, more selective job. These results suggest the letter did not increase confidence or motivation to apply for jobs, but rather that employer responses drove observed effects. Treatment youth were significantly more likely to include a recommendation in their application; extrapolating the difference in letter use suggests that the employment effects of actually using the letter are about 15 percent in year 1, and 8 percent over 2 years. The fact that sending youth a few pieces of paper increased employment suggests there are, in fact, frictions in the labor market for low-income, minority youth. Providing credible signals about ability may be a low-cost way to overcome these frictions. Even with the kind of displacement that may come with scale, better information could improve match quality, address inequality, or help reduce vacancies resulting from uncertainty about worker skills.What’s in a Job? Evaluating the Effect of Private Sector Summer Employment on Post-Secondary Outcomes
Abstract
Recently, policymakers and researchers have explored how time spent outside of the classroom, including early work experience such as summer jobs, can affect student outcomes. Although prior literature has demonstrated that summer jobs reduce crime, the evidence on academic outcomes is mixed. We study a unique feature of the Boston summer jobs program: the effect of receiving a private sector, versus a public sector, job placement. Private sector placements are believed to have a greater potential to affect academic outcomes through greater exposure to professional career pathways and adult mentors. Each year the Boston Private Industry Council places roughly 3,000 students in private sector jobs with over 200 employers in industries such as healthcare, finance, biotechnology, higher education, and real estate. Using data from administrative records, we employ both fixed effects and matching models to estimate the impact of receiving a private sector placement on both secondary and post-secondary outcomes. Fixed effects estimates show that participants increase attendance rates by 2 percentage points during the school year following participation, driven by a reduction in unexcused absences. We also find a 20 percent reduction in course failures but no impact on overall GPA. Our matching models indicate that participants were 8 percentage points more likely to achieve proficiency on statewide exams and 5.5 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school relative to the comparison group. We further find that participants had SAT scores that were 30 points higher and were 8 percentage points more likely to enroll in college, although no more likely to persist from the first to the second year. These results suggest that job type may be an important factor as cities continue to shift the emphasis of summer job programs towards employment experiences that prepare youth for both educational and career pathways into adulthood.Discussant(s)
Harry Holzer
,
Georgetown University
Martha Bailey
,
University of California-Los Angeles
David Deming
,
Harvard University
Joshua Goodman
,
Boston University
JEL Classifications
- J4 - Particular Labor Markets
- I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty