90359 enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database The Impact of Vocational Training for the Unemployed: Experimental Evidence from Turkey Author(s) Sarojini Hirshleifer, David McKenzie, Rita Almeida, Cristobal Ridao-Cano Contact dmckenzie@worldbank.org Country Turkey Organizing Theme Education and Skills, Economic Opportunities and Access to Assets Status Completed Intervention Category Training Sector Education, Social Protection and Labor A randomized experiment is used to evaluate a large-scale, active labor market policy: Turkey's vocational training programs for the unemployed. A detailed follow-up survey of a large sample with low attrition enables precise estimation of treatment impacts and their heterogeneity. The average impact of training on employment is positive, but close to zero and statistically insignificant, which is Abstract much lower than either program officials or applicants expected. Over the first year after training, the paper finds that training had statistically significant effects on the quality of employment and that the positive impacts are stronger when training is offered by private providers. However, longer-term administrative data show that after three years these effects have also dissipated. Gender Connection Gender Informed Analysis Gender Outcomes Labor force participation, income IE Design Randomized Control Trial (oversubscription desgin) The vocational training programs average 336 hours over three months, are Intervention available for a wide range of subjects, and are offered by both private and public providers to unemployed. Intervention Period 2010-2011 Final sample consisted of 5902 applicants, of which 3001 were allocated to treatment and 2901 to control. The applicants for the evaluation courses were, in Sample population general, relatively young and well-educated. The average applicant were 27 years old, and approximately 73 percent of them had completed high school. Sixty-one percent of the evaluation sample was female. Comparison Control group received no treatment conditions Unit of analysis Individual level Evaluation Period 2010-2012 Last updated: 2 September 2014 1 enGender Impact: The World Bank’s Gender Impact Evaluation Database We estimate that being assigned to training had an overall effect on employment and earnings that was small in magnitude and not statistically significant: individuals assigned to treatment had a 2 percentage point higher likelihood of working at all, a 1.2 percentage point higher likelihood of working 20 hours or more per week, and earned 5.6 percent higher income. We find similar magnitude, but statistically significant, impacts on measures of the quality of employment: a 2.0 percentage point increase in formal employment, 8.6 percentage point increase in formal income, and an increase in occupational status. Our point estimates suggest the training impacts were largest for males aged above 25, even though this group was least likely to take a course conditional on being assigned to treatment. We cannot, however, reject equality of impacts by age and gender, nor do we find robust Results heterogeneity with respect to other individual characteristics. Consistent with these modest overall impacts, we do not find treated individuals to be in better mental health, to be any more likely to expect to be working in 2 years’ time, or to expect a higher future subjective well-being than individuals who are not trained. Despite the overall impact being close to zero, we find stronger and statistically significant impacts of vocational training in courses offered by private providers. Being selected for one of these courses results in a 4 to 6 percentage point increase in employment rates, relative to an employment rate of 37 percent for the control group. These returns persist when we control for observable differences in the characteristics of the courses and of their participants, but do not appear to last when it comes to impacts on formal employment over a 2.5 to 3 year period. Primary study limitations Spanish Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF), the Gender Action Plan, the World Bank’s Funding Source Research Support Budget, and ISKUR Hirshleifer, S., McKenzie, D., Almeida, R., & Ridao-Cano, C. (2014). The Impact of Reference(s) Vocational Training for the Unemployed: Experimental Evidence from Turkey, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 6807 Link to Studies http://www- wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2014/03/18/ 000158349_20140318091141/Rendered/PDF/WPS6807.pdf Microdata http://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/1973 Last updated: 2 September 2014 2