The value of early labor market experience: results from randomizing summer jobs among 40,000 adolescents

Research problem and specific questions:The overarching research question of the project is how early work experience affects important outcomes later in life.

To address this, the effects of a unique large-scale experiment in Malmö municipality will be studied, where between 2014 and 2021, summer jobs were randomly allocated among 40,000 high school students who applied for a job.

The project will investigate the effects on academic achievement, educational choices, labor market outcomes, crime, and health.

Previous studies in this area have mainly relied on non-experimental methods, making it difficult to establish whether the relationships between early work experience, or participation in different labor market programs, and later outcomes reflect causal effects or not.

The project will provide unique new knowledge about the causal effects of early work experience and the usefulness of programs that generate such experience.Data and method:The project will use data from the Malmö summer job lottery, which will be linked to registry data on the aforementioned outcomes by SCB.

Data from Malmö municipality has already been obtained, and the ethics application for the project has been approved. The data includes all 40,000 high school students in Malmö who applied for summer jobs between 2014 and 2021.

The setup of the summer job program is highly suitable for estimating causal effects as the job offers are randomly allocated, making it similar to a randomized trial.

Therefore, standard methods for analyzing data from randomized trials will be applied in the project.Societal relevance and utilisation:The project has high societal relevance as youth unemployment is high in Sweden and unevenly distributed among different groups of young people.

Since unemployment has been associated with a range of problems, such as poorer job prospects, poorer health, and crime, it is essential to understand what types of measures can counteract youth unemployment.

The project will contribute new knowledge about whether a program that stimulates early work experience can be an effective measure in these regards.Plan for project realisation:The project will be carried out over a period of 3-years, with funding sought for salary costs for the undersigned and for the purchase and linking of data from SCB.