Unemployed couples: the labour market effects of making both partners search for work

The paper evaluates the effect of a recent change to unemployment benefit in the UK which requires both partners in a couple (rather than just one) to search for work. The difference-in-differences estimator is extended in two ways. First, variations in when the change was implemented are exploited to test and adjust for bias resulting from differential trends among the control group. Second, the approach is combined with matching to relax functional form restrictions. After several months, positive effects on exiting from benefits were detected but effects on entry to jobs were less apparent. Copyright 2005 Royal Statistical Society.