This paper summarises the evidence on the effectiveness of employment programmes, and on whether employment programmes can reduce crime and violence. This evidence comes from impact evaluations that compare program participants to comparison groups, often tracking impacts for years, and including some randomized control trials. The paper finds that the literature shows some consistent and surprising results across countries. On the effectiveness of employment programmes, the evidence shows that:
- In low-income countries, poor households typically have a ‘portfolio of work’ rather than a ‘job’. Poor people’s portfolios of work can be improved on a large scale, cost-effectively, through a mix of safety net programs, such as public workfare, and “supply-side” interventions that try to give people and firms something they need, such as capital or skills, to raise their incomes.
- The poor seem to be held back by too little capital and an absence of cheap credit. ‘Capital-centric’ interventions have the most promise, but tend to be the exception rather than the rule. However, field experiments in several countries find almost no effect of microfinance on profits or poverty.
- It is hard to find a skills training program that passes a simple cost-benefit test. Repeated studies of technical, vocational, and business skills training programs, show that most programs do not have positive impacts, especially on men. Those that do are often so expensive that costs far outweigh benefits.
- Workfare and other social safety net programs have promise in fragile states, but there is little evidence on their impacts.
On the link between employment, crime, and violence, the paper finds that:
- Successful employment programs modestly reduce materially-motivated crime and violence. However, researchers have relatively little data on high-risk populations in poor and fragile states so it is hard to draw strong conclusions.
- To improve social stability, employment programs should target the riskiest men. However, jobs and poverty might not matter that much for an awful lot of violence, from rioting to rebellion to terrorism, because many violent groups do not use material incentives to motivate people.
- Programs that emphasize social, emotional, and planning-related ‘soft’ skills may be powerful violence-reduction tool as recent behavioural programs have shown positive results. A growing body of evidence from the United States and Africa suggests that cognitive behavioural therapy focused on specific socio-emotional skills, self-control, and planning could be quite effective at reducing crime and violence.
The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for policymakers. The authors emphasise the importance of evidence on the cost-effectiveness of employment programmes, and argue that small-scale pilots can provide important local data on how to improve programmes.
