The Effect of Pathways to work on Labour

This article summarises the recent evaluation of Pathways to Work – a package of reforms aimed at encouraging employment among people claiming incapacity benefits (Belway et al., 2007) The results show an increase of over 7 percentage points in the probability of working about a year and a half after the start of claim. The probability of not claiming incapacity benefits was also increased initially but this effect later reduced to just 1½ percentage points. The findings suggest Pathways to Work may contribute to the Government;s aim of increasing the employment rate. They provide less encouragement with regard to the aim of reducing by 1 million the number claiming incapacity benefits.