Interventions to improve the labour market outcomes of young people
Citation: Kluve J, Puerto S, Robalino D, et al. Interventions to improve the labour market outcomes of youth: A systematic review of training, entrepreneurship promotion, employment services and subsidized employment interventions. Campbell Systematic Reviews. 2017;13(1):1-288.
What is this? During the COVID-19 pandemic, business closures have led to job losses which have disproportionately affected the most disadvantaged populations, including youth. Existing research on the effects of intervention to improve their labour market outcomes might provide useful information for policy makers.
In this Campbell systematic review, the authors searched for studies of active labour market programmes targeted at youth between the ages of 15 to 35 years of age in any country. They did not restrict their searches by date or language of publication and did the search in February 2014. They included 53 randomized trials, 11 natural experiments and 50 quasi-experimental studies.
What was found: Entrepreneurship promotion and skills training were effective at increasing employment and earnings, with larger impacts in low- and middle-income countries.
Programmes targeting the most disadvantaged youth were associated with larger effects, with slightly larger effects for women than men.
The applicability of the findings to sub-Saharan Africa are uncertain because of the lack of studies from there.
The costs of these programmes and their impact on intermediate outcomes (such as soft skills) are uncertain.