Research and evaluation reports: Employment incentives for sole parents: technical report - January 2010
Employment incentives for sole parents: Labour market effects of changes to financial incentives and support: technical report
Introduction
Over the period October 2004 to April 2007 the New Zealand government introduced substantial changes to in-work incentives and financial support for families with dependent children as part of the Working for Families (WFF) package. This report is a technical account of analyses into the impact of these changes on employment and benefit receipt outcomes for sole parents.
A summary of the results from these analyses, titled "Employment incentives for sole parents: Labour market effects of changes to financial incentives and support", was published on the websites of Inland Revenue (IR) and the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in February 2009.[1] This report provides a detailed discussion of the data and methods used in the analyses and presents the associated results in full.
The evaluation of the impact of the WFF policy changes on sole parents used two analytical approaches:
- Difference-in-differences analysis looking at the impact on employment rates for sole parents, using data from the Household Labour Force Survey.
- Survival analysis looking at the impact on sole parents' movements off benefit, and possibly their movements back onto benefit, using a research dataset of linked MSD and IR administrative information for all Domestic Purposes Benefit-Sole Parent recipients.
The two approaches were well-suited to the available data, which provides the most reliable information on the outcomes of interest, and could control for the effects of the strong economy that prevailed through the period of implementation. They offer complementary perspectives on the impact of WFF on sole parents' labour market behaviour.
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| This document contains a number of data tables and complex mathematical formula used to describe the source data, methods of analysis and results of this research. An accessible HTML version of this report should be available by 1 April 2010. If you cannot access this report in its current format please email valmai.copeland@ird.govt.nz |
1 http://www.ird.govt.nz/aboutir/reports/research/emp-sole-parents/
http://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/evaluation/receipt-working-for-families/
Date published: 29 Jan 2010
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