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On the one hand, unemployment is known to have detrimental effects on individuals' mental health. On the other hand, poor mental health reduces re‐employment chances quite drastically, creating a vicious cycle. Active labour market policies (ALMPs) such as training programs or wage subsidies have been shown to ameliorate negative effects on mental health and improve labour market integration on average for the general unemployed population. In the context of individuals with severe mental health issues, however, it is unclear whether these interventions can be expected to deliver similar positive effects. In fact, one may argue that they have the potential to worsen employment prospects of individuals by adding additional stress to their pre‐existing mental health problems. Hence, this paper estimates the long‐term causal effects of ALMPs on the labour market integration of individuals with self‐reported severe mental health issues and compares estimates to individuals without such issues using unique combined survey and administrative data. Effects are estimated using the innovative double machine learning method and show that ALMPs do not only improve labour market integration of unemployed individuals with severe mental health issues, but they do so more effectively than for other unemployed individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job creation programmes aim at increasing the employability of hard-to-place unemployed, and eventually integrating them into employment. Yet, previous evaluation studies have been pessimistic about their efficacy. For One-Euro-Jobs, a job creation programme for welfare benefit recipients in Germany, previous evaluations found unfavourable effects particularly for easier-to-place participants. Thus, in 2012 the legislator reformed the programme in order to target the hard-to-place more accurately. This study is the first post-reform evaluation of One-Euro-Jobs. We find that, although the programme is indeed better targeted than before, One-Euro-Jobs decrease participants' employment chances within three years after programme entry. These outcomes are worse than those found for pre-reform participants. We cannot conclude with certainty whether the reform decreased the programme's efficacy, but we identify channels through which the reform and other contemporaneous changes may have done so. These channels include changes in programme design features, changes in business-cycle conditions, and prolonged lock-in effects due to "programme careers". To substantiate the latter explanation, we also provide novel evidence that One-Euro-Jobs seem to initiate programme careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the recent increase in the inflows of refugees to Europe, governments have made considerable investments in public policies aimed at facilitating the labour market integration of refugees. Despite these efforts, the labour market participation of refugees remains low. This situation raises the question of whether employers actually appreciate these public policies and whether refugees' participation in specific active labour market policies (ALMPs), such as work practice or wage subsidies, increases their likelihood of being hired. In this article, we take a novel approach and combine employers' evaluations of specific ALMPs with their attitudes towards refugees. We argue that these labour market policies can only be successful when employers hold positive attitudes towards refugees in the first place. We investigate this question by means of a factorial survey experiment with employers in Austria, Germany and Sweden. Our results show that, indeed, employers' evaluations of fictional refugee candidates who participated in ALMPs are influenced by their attitudes towards this group. Participation in these policy measures is regarded positively only by those employers who already hold positive attitudes towards refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asking whether social policies can alter the experience of unemployment, this article systematically evaluates whether participation in active labour market policies (ALMPs) influences the well-being of the unemployed. With consistently high unemployment rates in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, scholars have started to examine the impact of ALMP schemes on a variety of tangible economic outcomes, but place little focus on their sociological and psychological impacts. Using a novel panel survey, the IZA Evaluation Dataset, I employ a propensity score matching approach combined with difference-in-differences to address selection on both observables and unobservables. Consistent with my theoretical predictions, I find evidence that ALMP programmes that are most like regular employment, namely wage subsidies and subsidized self-employment, have the strongest impact on the well-being of the unemployed. Looking at regional and gender differences indicates interesting effect heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]