Who is targeted by One-Euro-Jobs? : a selectivity analysis

"In 2005 major reforms of the means-tested unemployment benefit system were implemented in Germany. One element of the reforms was to activate benefit recipients by a workfare programme, the so-called One-Euro-Job programme. More than 600,000 benefit recipients entered this programme in the year 2005. This paper investigates for a sample of means-tested unemployment benefit recipients the selection into One-Euro-Jobs in spring 2005 with the help of binary probit models. As there are substantial gender and regional effects, we estimate the selection equations for men and women in East and West Germany separately. Women have a lower probability of participating if they have a child under the age of three, whereas this makes no difference for men. Then, we find that young adults below 25 years begin a One-Euro-Job with a higher probability than other age groups. Moreover, special target groups such as individuals with migration background are not promoted with One-Euro- Jobs. They participate with a lower probability than Germans without migration background. Overall, we conclude that a concentration on defined target groups cannot be observed. To analyse the sizable differences in participation probabilities of women in East and West Germany a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of effects is applied. It turns out that the differences can partly be traced back to characteristics such as qualification and employment history and to the availability of child care facilities." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))