Do Workfare Programs Live Up to Their Promises? Experimental Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire
Workfare programs are one of the most popular social protection and employment policy instruments in the developing world. They evoke the promise of efficient targeting, as well as immediate and lasting impacts on participants’ employment, earnings...
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/420671617642830158/Do-Workfare-Programs-Live-Up-to-Their-Promises-Experimental-Evidence-from-Côte-d-Ivoire http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35406 |
| Summary: | Workfare programs are one of the most
popular social protection and employment policy instruments
in the developing world. They evoke the promise of efficient
targeting, as well as immediate and lasting impacts on
participants’ employment, earnings, skills and behaviors.
This paper evaluates contemporaneous and post-program
impacts of a public works intervention in Côte d’Ivoire. The
program was randomized among urban youths who self-selected
to participate and provided seven months of employment at
the formal minimum wage. Randomized subsets of beneficiaries
also received complementary training on basic
entrepreneurship or job search skills. During the program,
results show limited impacts on the likelihood of
employment, but a shift toward wage jobs, higher earnings
and savings, as well as changes in work habits and
behaviors. Fifteen months after the program ended, savings
stock remain higher, but there are no lasting impacts on
employment or behaviors, and only limited impacts on
earnings. Machine learning techniques are applied to assess
whether program targeting can improve. Significant
heterogeneity in impacts on earnings is found during the
program but not post-program. Departing from self-targeting
improves performance: a range of practical targeting
mechanisms achieve impacts close to a machine learning
benchmark by maximizing contemporaneous impacts without
reducing post-program impacts. Impacts on earnings remain
substantially below program costs even under improved targeting. |
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