Does privatisation of vocational rehabilitation improve labour market opportunities? Evidence from a field experiment in Sweden

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU) is a research institute under the Swedish Ministry of Employment, situated in Uppsala. IFAU's objective is to promote, support and carry out scientific evaluations. The assignment includes: the effects of labour market policies, studies of the functioning of the labour market, the labour market effects of educational policies and the labour market effects of social insurance policies. IFAU shall also disseminate its results so that they become accessible to different interested parties in Sweden and abroad. Terms of use: Documents inIFAU also provides funding for research projects within its areas of interest. The deadline for applications is October 1 each year. Since the researchers at IFAU are mainly economists, researchers from other disciplines are encouraged to apply for funding.IFAU is run by a Director-General. The institute has a scientific council, consisting of a chairman, the Director-General and five other members. Among other things, the scientific council proposes a decision for the allocation of research grants. A reference group including representatives for employer organizations and trade unions, as well as the ministries and authorities concerned is also connected to the institute. Papers published in the Working Paper Series should, according to the IFAU policy, have been discussed at seminars held at IFAU and at least one other academic forum, and have been read by one external and one internal referee. They need not, however, have undergone the standard scrutiny for publication in a scientific journal. The purpose of the Working Paper Series is to provide a factual basis for public policy and the public policy discussion. AbstractThis paper analyses if privatisation of vocational rehabilitation can improve labour market opportunities for individuals on long-term sickness absence. We use a field experiment performed by the Employment Service and the Social Insurance Agency in Sweden during 2008 to 2010, in which over 4,000 participants were randomly offered private and public rehabilitation. We find no differences in employment rates following rehabilitation between individuals who received rehabilitation by private and public providers. Also the average cost of rehabilitation was essentially equal for the two types of providers. This suggests that there are no large efficiency gains from privatising vocational rehabilitation.

Long-term sick leave and the impact of a graded return-to-work program: evidence from Germany

“…Workplace training is superior to other forms of rehabilitation programs but there exist no positive effects in comparison to the case of non-participation [17]. Regarding the privatization of vocational rehabilitation, no differences in employment rates after rehabilitation in a private or public program for Sweden are found [18]. For Germany, the rise in co-payments in the late 1990s showed low price elasticity for rehabilitation programs aiming at preventing work incapacity; instead, demand for treatment at health spas is priceelastic [19].…”

Active Labor Market Policies

“…Furthermore, not a 21 Krug & Stephan (2013) and Laun & Thoursie (2014) discuss other randomized evaluations of public/private job search assistance offers.…”

Integrating Immigrants into the Nordic Labour Markets

“…Two of the randomised trials described here are from Sweden, one from Germany, one from France, one from Switzerland and one from Denmark. The two Swedish studies (Bennmarker et al 2013, Laun andThoursie 2014) and the German study (Krug and Stephan 2016) focus on hard-to-place groups. The target groups in these three studies were: • • Disabled individuals with impaired ability to work, immigrants of at least 25 years of age who had been unemployed for at least six months, and adolescents under 25 years who had been unemployed for at least three months ).…”

“…• Individuals who had been receiving sickness benefit for more than two years or were receiving temporary disability benefits (Laun and Thoursie 2014). • • Hard-to-place unemployed individuals, where the categorisation as hard-to-place was based on profiles compiled by caseworkers (Krug and Stephan 2016).…”