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This paper examines the effect of lifelong learning on men's employment and wages. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, a variant of the mover-stayer model is developed in which hourly wages are either taken from a stationary distribution (movers) or are closely related to the hourly wage one year earlier (stayers). Mover-stayer status is not observed and we therefore model wages using an endogenous switching regression, extended to take account of non-random selection into employment. The model is estimated by maximum likelihood, using generalised residuals to correct for possible endogeneity of lifelong learning decisions. The results show modest effects significant at a 10 per cent level for men who undertake lifelong learning without upgrading their educational status and more powerful and significant effects for those who do upgrade their status. For the latter, the influence of lifelong learning on employment prospects is an important influence on the overall return.

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New Deal 25 plus (ND25+) provides job search assistance, training opportunities and work placements to people aged between 25 and the state pension age who have been claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance for 18 out of 21 months. It comprises three stages: Gateway - up to four months of intensive jobsearch assistance; Intensive Activity Period (IAP) - a variety of assistance (training, work experience etc.) lasting 13 to 52 weeks; Follow-through - further jobsearch assistance for up to three months. At present, people aged 50 and over on ND25+ can volunteer to participate in the IAP. The Pensions Green Paper ‘Simplicity, security and choice: working and saving for retirement’ announced the intention to run a pilot study mandating participation. This has been running since April 2004 in 14 Jobcentre Plus districts. This report documents the evaluation to date of the effect of the mandate. Results are interim at this stage - final results will be available in a later report due in 2008. The evaluation follows a random assignment (or ‘experimental’) design. Individuals participating in the pilots are randomly assigned to either an ‘action’ group for whom IAP participation is mandatory or a ‘control’ group for whom participation remains voluntary. The analysis is based on data collected at the time of random assignment and on the New Deal Evaluation Database. Up until August 2005, 2,622 individuals had participated in the pilots. The total number of participants expected by the end of the pilot period is about 4,000. This is less by a third than original expectations.

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This paper estimates the extent to which the labour market transitions of young people are influenced by prior experience. The authors distinguish three potential states - employment, education and a residual category made up of those young people who are not in employment, education, or training (NEET) and consider labour market outcomes from the time of reaching school-leaving age up until age 24.

The results of this study confirm the negative duration dependence in transitions from employment into NEET status and also transitions in the opposite direction. The authors provide novel evidence on the effect of prior experience, showing that acquiring employment experience tends to increase future employment prospects while long periods NEET have the opposite effect. Over time, the role of experience becomes more important, tending to increase employment and reduce the extent to which individuals return to education.

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Traineeships are an education and training programme that provide young people aged 16-24 in the UK with an intensive period of work experience and work preparation training, as well as offering them support in improving their English and maths to give them the best opportunity of entering an apprenticeship or employment. The first evaluation report was published in March 2015 [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 119.925] and the second in July 2017 [available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 129.180].

This report estimates the impact of participating in a traineeship. It forms part of a wider evaluation of the traineeships programme. The evaluation includes the following strands: surveys of trainees, employers and providers; qualitative provider case studies to build up an in-depth picture of implementation; and an analysis of national administrative data to estimate the impact of traineeships. This report is based on the analysis of national administrative data and estimates the effect of participating in a traineeship on the three intended outcomes of progress into an apprenticeship, further learning or employment. The impact is estimated by comparing the outcomes observed for those participating in traineeships against an estimate of their expected outcomes if they had not participated in the programme. Traineeships were introduced in August 2013 and the analysis in this report focuses on the cohort of young people who started a traineeship in the 2013/14 academic year. The results presented in this report are therefore specific to participants in 2013/14. A number of changes to traineeships have been made since the policy was introduced, which may have had an impact on the overall effectiveness of the programme.

Edited excerpts from publication with additional information. Show less

This paper studies the school-to-work transition in the UK with the aim of achieving a richer understanding of individuals’ trajectories in the five years after reaching school leaving age. By applying the technique of ‘optimal matching’ on data from 1991 to 2008, [the authors] group individuals’ trajectories post-16, and identify a small number of distinct transition patterns. [The] results suggest that while nine out of 10 young people have generally positive experiences post-16, the remaining individuals exhibit a variety of histories that might warrant policy attention. [The authors] assess the extent to which characteristics at age 16 can predict which type of trajectory a young person will follow. [The] analysis shows that, despite the apparent heterogeneity, virtually all at-risk trajectories are associated with a relatively small set of key ‘risk factors’: early pregnancy; low educational attainment and self-confidence; and disadvantaged family background. These characteristics are known to be strongly correlated across individuals and raise concerns about the degree of socioeconomic polarisation in the transition from school to work. Show less

This paper examines how young people's early transitions into the labour market have changed between cohorts born in 1958, 1970, 1980, and 1990. [The authors] use sequence analysis to characterise transition patterns and identify three distinct pathways in all cohorts. An 'Entering the Labour Market' group has declined significantly in size (from 91 per cent in the earliest cohort, to 37 per cent in the most recent), an 'Accumulating Human Capital' group has grown in its place (from 4 per cent to 51 per cent), but also a 'Potential Cause for Concern' group has grown alongside this, reaching 12 per cent in the most recent cohort. These trends appear to reflect behavioural rather than compositional changes. Females and those who are from a non-white ethnic background have gone from being more likely to be in the 'Potential Cause for Concern' group, to being less likely. Coming from a low socio-economic status background has remained a strong predictor of having a transition of this type across all four cohorts. These early transitions are important, not least since we show they are highly predictive of longer-term outcomes.

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This report presents new findings on the implementation and effectiveness of Britain's Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) demonstration program, which is being evaluated though a large-scale randomised control trial. ERA's distinctive combination of post-employment advisory support and financial incentives was designed to help low-income individuals who entered work sustain employment and advance in the labour market. The analysis presented here focuses on the experiences of lone parents within the first two years following their entry onto the program.

Excerpt from published summary. Show less

[The authors] investigate young people's labour market transitions beyond compulsory schooling and, in particular, the dynamic effects of early experiences. [The authors] use a UK longitudinal survey to model transitions between four states: employment, unemployment, education and a residual category made up of those neither in education nor economically active. The results provide new evidence on the causal impact of prior experience and show the importance of distinguishing between unemployment and inactivity among non-students. A simulation exercise illustrates the evaluation potential of the model and provides some clues for the design of interventions aimed at improving young people's employment prospects.

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This report presents the final results on the implementation, impacts, costs, and economic benefits of the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) programme. ERA's distinctive combination of post-employment advisory support and financial incentives was designed to help low-income individuals who entered work sustain employment and advance in the labour market. Launched in 2003 in selected Jobcentre Plus offices, ERA targeted three groups: (1) unemployed lone parents receiving Income Support and volunteering for the New Deal for Lone Parents welfare-to-work programme; (2) lone parents working part time and receiving Working Tax Credit; and (3) long-term unemployed people aged 25 or older receiving Jobseeker's Allowance who were required to participate in the New Deal 25 Plus welfare-to-work programme. The effectiveness of the programme was evaluated using a random assignment research design. The evaluation found that ERA produced short-term earnings gains for the two lone parent target groups. The early gains resulted from increases in the proportion of participants who worked full time (at least 30 hours per week). However, these effects generally faded after the programme ended, largely because the control group caught up with the ERA group. More impressive were the results for the long-term unemployed participants (mostly men) in the New Deal 25 Plus target group. For them, ERA produced modest but sustained increases in employment and substantial and sustained increases in earnings. These positive effects emerged after the first year and were still evident at the end of a five-year follow-up period. The earnings gains were accompanied by lasting reductions in benefits receipt. ERA proved cost-effective for this group from the perspectives of the participants themselves, the Government budget, and society as a whole.

Abstract from MDRC website. Show less

This report presents new findings on how an innovative post-employment program in Britain is affecting the employment, earnings and benefits receipt of long-term unemployed individuals. This initiative, called the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) demonstration program, is being carefully evaluated through a large-scale randomised control trial. ERA offered a unique combination of financial incentives and in-work support designed to help individuals sustain and advance in the labour market. The demonstration targeted three groups: unemployed lone parents, lone parents working part-time, and long-term unemployed individuals receiving government benefits. While a companion report [indexed at TD/TNC 94.119] presents effects for lone parents, this report focuses on the experiences of the long-term unemployed group, most of whom are men. An earlier evaluation report published in 2007 [indexed at TD/TNC 89.84], showed that, despite significant positive effects for lone parents, ERA's effects for the long-term unemployed group were mixed and uncertain after one year of follow-up. For this group, the program had shown no effects overall on employment or earnings but there were suggestions of positive effects in some districts. The new evidence presented here, covering two years of follow-up, continues to show that ERA's effects were limited. Although the program increased overall employment rates and reduced benefits receipt in year two, these effects were small. However, final assessment of ERA's effectiveness for this group must await longer-term follow-up.

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