Veronika Knize (IAB)

Work-in-Progress seminars

Participation in activation programs and its effects on women and men’s employment from 2008 to 2022. A gender study

Abstract: Across welfare states, welfare recipients can participate in activation programs that are meant to improve their chances of finding employment. These programs have been developed and applied along a social investment–workfare continuum, including (re)training programs, wage subsidies, placement services, and workfare programs. From a gender perspective, we know a few studies found that women’s program participation was lower than men’s during the 2000s. We do not know whether their participation has changed over time amid normative changes in gender roles and the rise of policies that promote women’s roles as individual workers, however. In addition, we ignore whether macro changes such as immigration have had an impact on program participation. Lastly, little has been done to quantify the influence gendered participation in activation programs might have on women and men’s employment outcomes. Does gendered participation in programs enlarge the gender gap in employment? If, after all, program participation is becoming less gendered, is it advancing gender equity? We attempt to fill this research gap investigating program participation and its effects on women and men’s employment in Germany from 2008 to 2022. In a first step, we investigate women and men’s access to different programs through time. The question is whether, how, and why program participation changed from 2008 to 2022. In a second step, we analyze the effects of participating in programs on women and men’s employment outcomes, including employment probability, earnings, and skill level at work. Theoretically, we consider three intersecting dimensions in interplay: policies, public employment services (job centers), and family and individual. We thereby examine what factors affect program participation and, in consequence, possible differences in employment outcomes. Empirically, we create a panel dataset combining individual-level data on welfare recipients with job-center level data from 2008 to 2022. The individual-level data includes information on employment histories and outcomes, program participation, and sociodemographic and family characteristics. The job-center level data contains quarterly information on the composition job-center’s workers, including the share of women caseworkers and whether a delegate for gender equality works there. The idea is to observe the development of the probability to participate in programs over time and thereby estimate what factors are associated with it. We then use a fixed-effects approach to estimate the effects of job-center level factors that might change over time. A key distinction is made between parents and non-parents of younger children.