Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP6784
Authors: Stefanie Behncke; Markus Frlich; Michael Lechner
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: Age; Gender; Public Employment Services; Social Identity; Social Interactions; Unemployment
JEL Codes: C31; J64; J68
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Similarity between unemployed individuals and caseworkers (J68) | Likelihood of job placements (J68) |
| Sharing multiple characteristics (C30) | Likelihood of job placements (J68) |
| Communication and trust (L96) | Job search efforts by the unemployed (J68) |
| Social backgrounds similarity (I24) | Information exchange (O36) |
| Information exchange (O36) | Job placements (J68) |