Do welfare-to-work initiatives work? Evidence from an activation programme targeted at social assistance recipients in Norway

Abstract

The emphasis on welfare-to-work policies across Europe has led to increased interest in active labour market programmes. A recent trend in some countries is a tighter collaboration between different welfare agencies and the inclusion of very disadvantaged groups. Few studies have evaluated such broad programmes. In this article we evaluate a Norwegian initiative to combat poverty, which is mainly directed at social assistance recipients, and which involves a close cooperation between the Employment Service and the Social Welfare System. We illuminate short-term effects, taking a dual approach: First, we analyse transitions to work among programme participants and study the determinants of this process by means of survival analysis. Second, we address the question of programme effects using propensity score matching. We find that the mean programme effect is positive, but varying across target groups. For immigrants and single mothers there is no impact. For youth the effect may even be negative. The only significant effect in the desired direction is found among long-term social assistance recipients, and this effect is fairly large.