IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jnlpup/v41y2021i1p42-65_3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Behavioural insight and the labour market: evidence from a pilot study and a large stepped-wedge controlled trial

Author

Listed:
  • Sanders, Michael
  • Briscese, Guglielmo
  • Gallagher, Rory
  • Gyani, Alex
  • Hanes, Samuel
  • Kirkman, Elspeth
  • Service, Owain

Abstract

In this article, we describe two experiments measuring the impact of a collection of interventions informed by behavioural sciences to reduce unemployment. In a small-scale pilot study (n = 2,383) run in partnership with a Jobcentre in the UK, we found that small changes to the way jobseekers interacted with employment advisers showed promising effects. Based on these findings, we refined our intervention and tested it in a second, larger trial (n = 88,033) across 12 Jobcentres in the UK. We found that our intervention significantly increased off-flow from benefits. These experiments demonstrate that policies and programmes aimed at reducing unemployment can benefit greatly from a deeper understanding of the behaviours of jobseekers and employment advisers. Further, we suggest that this approach could have positive implications for other areas of public policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Sanders, Michael & Briscese, Guglielmo & Gallagher, Rory & Gyani, Alex & Hanes, Samuel & Kirkman, Elspeth & Service, Owain, 2021. "Behavioural insight and the labour market: evidence from a pilot study and a large stepped-wedge controlled trial," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(1), pages 42-65, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jnlpup:v:41:y:2021:i:1:p:42-65_3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0143814X19000242/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jnlpup:v:41:y:2021:i:1:p:42-65_3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/pup .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.