Household Characteristics and ALMP Uptake

Tair Kasztan Flechner , University of Antwerp
Jonas Wood , University of Antwerp
Karel Neels , University of Antwerp

Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP), aim to increase the employability of unemployed population subgroups. Research indicates, however, that the most vulnerable groups – such as migrant origin women – are less likely to participate in the most effective programmes. Although prior studies established that household characteristics affect the labour market outcomes of women, and variation in household characteristics by origin group and migrant generation has been documented, research has hitherto not addressed the potentially differential effect of household characteristics on ALMP uptake for different migrant origin groups. Using event history analysis and longitudinal microdata from the employment office and social security registers, we analyse to which extent the presence and origin of a partner in the household, and the presence of children affects the uptake of occupation-specific training in Flanders (Belgium) amongst unemployed women with Southern European or Turkish/Moroccan migration origin, as well as among women without a migration origin. Our results not only indicate that enrolment into ALMP strongly differs by women’s migration background and their household characteristics, but also that differentiation by household characteristics depends on women’s migration background. More specifically, the occurrence of a migrant origin partner is associated to lower enrolment for all unemployed women, but more pronounced for migrant women, particularly with a Turkish/Moroccan background. In contrast, the negative relationship between children’s presence and training enrolment holds similarly, regardless of women’s migration background. The identification of household-level barriers to ALMP uptake provides essential input to policy makers in the context of the women’s labour force integration.

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 Presented in Session 18. The impact of policies on demographic outcomes