Impact Evaluation of the Graduate Practice Intervention in Slovakia with the Application of the CART Method

Abstract

In Slovakia, the contribution to graduate practice is one of the active labour market policy interventions, the main goal of which for young school-leavers is to gain first job experiences and contacts with potential employers. Among the young jobseekers, it is one of the most used interventions. This study aims to provide a counterfactual impact evaluation of this contribution on the employability of its participants and also on their monthly wages. The total period under review is 2014–2017, during which the treated individuals participated in the graduate practice during 2014–2015. Then, their course of employment and average monthly wages were monitored over a two-year impact period, covering the period 2015–2017. The study was carried out using a database of 12,953 treated eligible participants of graduate practice and 83,907 non–treated controls. The data used in the study is managed by the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic (COLSAF SR) and the Social Insurance Agency (SIA). For the evaluation, propensity score matching was used, where the propensity scores were estimated using classification and regression trees. The results of the study show that the participants of the graduate practice were employed on average three months longer during the two-year impact period after the end of the intervention as full-time employees or self-employed, and their average salary was almost 217 euros higher than that of the control group of non-participants.