How helping disabled people find employment affects the job market

a post by Barbara Petrongolo (Queen Mary University of London, UK), Felix Koenig (Princeton University, USA) and John Van Reenan (Massachusetts Institute for Technology, USA) for the OUP blog


JobCentre Plus by Andrew_Writer. CC by 2.0  via Flickr.

Policy makers have long been concerned with helping people on disability benefits find some employment as this group has grown dramatically in recent decades. In the UK, as in several other countries, there are now many more people on disability benefits than on unemployment benefits. The chances of leaving disability benefits once someone is enrolled is low and although many disabled people cannot work at all, many others would like to have some access to the labor market, such as part-time employment.

Introducing performance rewards for public employment service staff may be a cost-effective way to help the disabled find jobs. The UK Jobcentre Plus reform introduced modern management practices into the welfare system. Similar incentive schemes have been associated with substantial productivity gains in the private sector. The reform offered caseworkers greater career rewards if they successfully placed benefit recipients into work. Jobcentre Plus was introduced at different times in different districts between 2001 and 2008, so this staggered timing enabled researchers to implement a thorough examination of the impact of the policy.

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See also:

Can helping the sick hurt the able? Incentives, information and disruption in a welfare reform
a paper by Felix Koenig (LSE and CEP), Barbara Petrongolo (QMUL and CEP), John Van Reenen (MIT and CEP) and Nitika Bagaria (CRA)

Full text (PDF 48pp)

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