A Caseworker Like Me – Does The Similarity Between The Unemployed and Their Caseworkers Increase Job Placements?

2010/07/23 by Stefanie Behncke, Markus Frölich, Michael Lechner
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Mathematics · #Labor market dynamics and wage inequality #Advanced Causal Inference Techniques #Economic Policies and Impacts

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2010.02382.x

Abstract

This article examines whether the chances of job placements improve if the unemployed are counselled by caseworkers who belong to the same social group, defined by gender, age, education and nationality. Based on an unusually informative dataset, which links Swiss unemployed to their caseworkers, we find positive employment effects of about 3 percentage points if the caseworker and his unemployed client belong to the same social group. Coincidence in a single characteristic, e.g., same gender of caseworker and unemployed, does not lead to detectable effects on employment. These results, obtained by statistical matching methods, are confirmed by several robustness checks. Copyright (C) The Author(s). Journal compilation (C) Royal Economic Society 2010.

Citations

• The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects

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