Why do unemployed people avoid participation in training? An experiment for policy making

Chiara N. Focacci*, Pak H. Lam

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Despite active labour market policies being implemented to increase the skills and job opportunities of the unemployed, the number of people who do not participate in training and other services of job orientation remains high. By providing a model that studies the decision-making process of a potential participant, we hypothesise there is a behavioural motive behind it. An experiment is carried out to account for both the individual's preference and the social expectations of agents such as the government and her peers with respect to active occupational measures. Findings show that young unemployed individuals are significantly influenced by their peers when deciding whether to participate or not in a training programme. Particularly, negative expectations from the peers cause unemployed potential participants in a within- and between-subjects experiment to be, respectively, 33 and 42 percentage points less likely to take part in job training.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1231-1245
Number of pages15
JournalSocial Policy and Administration
Volume54
Issue number7
Early online date20 Apr 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors thank the participants of the internal seminar at the Institute of Law and Economics of Erasmus University Rotterdam; the 2019 IAREP/SABE Conference in Dublin; and the 36th EALE Conference in Tel Aviv. The authors are grateful to Stichting Erasmus Trustfonds in Rotterdam for their subsidy (97020.APP-100,980.2019/251/RB) and to Christoph Engel, Peter Mascini, Enrico Santarelli, Ann-Sophie Vandenberghe, Jonathan Klick, and Paul Aubrecht for their fundamental suggestions.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Research programs

  • SAI 2008-06 BACT

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