A Caseworker Like Me: Does the Similarity between Unemployed and Caseworker Increase Job Placements?

Stefanie Behncke, Markus Frölich () and Michael Lechner

No 3437, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines whether the chances of job placements improve if unemployed persons are counselled by caseworkers who belong to the same social group, defined by gender, age, education, and nationality. Based on an unusually informative dataset, which links Swiss unemployed to their caseworkers, we find positive employment effects of about 4 percentage points if caseworker and unemployed belong to the same social group. Coincidence in a single characteristic, e.g. same gender of caseworker and unemployed, does not lead to detectable effects on employment. These results, obtained by statistical matching methods, are confirmed by several robustness checks.

Keywords: treatment effects; education; social identity; social interactions; public employment services; unemployment; gender; age; matching estimators (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C31 J64 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2008-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Economic Journal, 2010, 120(549), 1430-1459

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Related works:
Working Paper: A Caseworker Like Me - Does the Similarity between unemployed and Caseworker Increase Job Placements? (2008)
Working Paper: A Caseworker Like Me - Does The Similarity Between Unemployed And Caseworker Increase Job Placements? (2008)
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