Do government sponsored vocational training programmes help the unemployed find jobs? Evidence from Russia

Abstract

The study estimates the employment effect of vocational training programmes for the unemployed in urban Russia. The results of propensity score matching indicate that training programmes had a non-negative overall effect on the programme participants relative to non-participants.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Michael Lechner, Ludmila Nivorozhkin, Lennart Hjalmarsson and Rick Wicks for providing useful comments, and Oksana Fedosova for research assistance. The support of the Institute of Independent Social Policy (Grant No. SP-02-2-12, Ford Foundation) and The W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research (Grant No. 03-83-07) are gratefully acknowledged. The usual disclaimer applies.

Notes

¹ Professions which were demanded by the local labor market and thus for which training was offered during the period under investigation included accountant, secretary, waitress, bartender, car mechanical, track and bus drivers, as well as some others.

² According to the law ‘On Employment of the Population in the Russian Federation,' an unemployed individual is one who simultaneously satisfies the: (1) belongs to the labour force; (2) is presently without a job and income; (3) is actively searching for a job; (4) is willing to take on a job; (5) has applied to a PEO for assistance in finding a job.

³ The two main reasons for non-response were refusal to let the interviewer in and refusal to answer the questions. On some occasions it was impossible to locate an individual at the provided address.

⁴ The algorithm for estimation of propensity score and for computation of the average treatment effect on treated (ATT) uses the Stata programmes developed by Becker and Ichino (2002).