Meta-analysis of ESF/YEI counterfactual impact evaluations : a comprehensive update including new methodology

The European Social Fund (ESF) is the instrument among the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIFs) aiming to enhance employment and social cohesion in the European Union (EU). For many of its interventions, counterfactual impact evaluations (CIEs) have been used to assess programme effectiveness by conducting a microeconomic comparison of outcomes achieved by ESF programme participants relative to suitable comparison groups. This report employs the tools of meta-analysis to provide the most recent overall conclusions drawn from all CIEs available online by November 2024. It provides a comprehensive update on two previous meta-analysis reports on the ESF (Pompili et al., 2022; Haepp and Serrano-Alarcón, 2024). The key findings are the following. The balanced average programme effect of ESF employment interventions on the employment probability of participants is 6.6 pp. The balanced programme effects for different intervention types are highest for employment subsidy programmes (17.1 pp), followed by internships (6.2 pp), other training programmes (5.3 pp) and vocational training programmes (5.0 pp). Interventions providing mentoring / social support yield estimates on the employment probability of 2.8 pp, while public employment programmes are the only intervention type yielding a decrease in the employment probability (-7.4 pp). Descriptive statistics further show that the highest programme effects are found in programmes taking between 13 and 24 months (9.3 pp), for older workers (11.3 pp), and over effect horizons beyond 13 months (9.8 pp in the range 13-24 months). Programmes achieve similar effect sizes for men (6.7 pp) and women (6.8 pp). Meta-regressions controlling for various contextual factors confirm that employment subsidy and internship programmes are the only programme types yielding significantly more favourable outcomes for employment probabilities as well as in terms of the signs and significance reporter for other labour market outcomes.