Abstract

This project focuses on young non-employed adults aged 20-22 in Germany receiving means-tested unemployment benefits (Unemployment Benefit II (UB II)). For this group, we study job centers’ activation strategies and their effects on outcomes such as employment opportunities and benefit receipt. Within our sample, we compare groups that differ according to whether they had already received benefits as teenagers while living in their parents’ household or not. As a first step, we will conduct descriptive analyses for the different subgroups to determine how they differ in terms of level of education, employment experience and household composition. The second part of the project examines each group’s entries into active labor market programs. We expect that young adults whose parents’ household received UB II and those whose parents’ household did not receive UB II not only differ with respect to observable characteristics such as education and employment experience. Unobserved differences in terms of access to social networks or occupational ambitions may influence their employment opportunities as well. On the one hand, case managers in job centers may thus less often assign young adults without a history of benefit receipt in their parents’ household to active labor market programs, as they may perceive them to be less in need of assistance to find employment. On the other hand, case managers may be under pressure to achieve performance quotas, which can lead to creaming in terms of preferentially allocating benefit recipients with better employment prospects to begin with to active labor market programs. Concerning program effects, our research question is whether young adults who experienced UB II receipt in their parents’ household profit more strongly from active labor market program participation regarding improvements in their employment opportunities than those whose parents did not receive UB II. For the former group, labor market program participation might help to partially compensate for a lack of job networks, and could therefore entail greater positive employment effects than for the latter group.
The analyses are based on the Integrated Employment Biographies (IEB) as well as Unemployment Benefit II History (LHG) data sets. We plan for a sampling time point at the beginning of the year 2014. As UB II was introduced in 2005, and the year 2005 also marks the beginning of the time span covered by the LHG data set, choosing 2014 as a sampling time point allows us to take sample members’ benefit receipt history over a nine-year period into account. We will also be able to study outcomes over an at least five-year period after the sampling time point.