THE ECONOMICS OF JOB SEARCH AND EMPLOYMENT BEHAVIOR OF WIN WOMEN

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of providing job search assistance on the decision to look for and accept employment for a group of welfare women registering with the Work Incentive (WIN) Program. For this population, it is believed that the costs of looking for work are a serious impediment to undertaking job search and, hence, finding employment. To help overcome these impediments, WIN registrants were offered help with direct out-of-pocket meal, transportation, and child-care expenses, partial compensation for time spent in search and job-readiness preparation and counseling. Economic models explaining the search and employment behavior of WIN women were developed and then estimated using data generated from an experimental test of this program in Louisville, Kentucky, during 1979 and 1980. New female WIN registrants were randomly assigned to either an experimental group offered immediate job search or to a control group offered regular WIN services. This study hypothesizes that Louisville's program of job search assistance will reduce total search costs to a greater extent than it will increase the opportunity costs of search time. Further, such a program will offer registrants a more structured and intensified search effort, resulting in increased job offers and, hence, increased probability of finding employment as compared to a group of clients not offered search assistance. The empirical findings suggest what while both experimental and control group members exhibited similar tendencies to report "looking for work," the nature and intensity of this search effort varied, with a greater proportion of the experimental group (55.1 percent) participating in a more structured and intensive search program than the control group (5.0 percent). Further, the offer of job search assistance did have the intended impact on the employment behavior of WIN women. Experimentals exhibited a 67.6 percent probability of being employed at some time during the fifteen-month post-WIN registration period compared to 62.2 percent for controls. This resulted in a significant employment impact of 5.4 percent. Education, previous work experience, health, age, and WIN status are also important determinants of an individual's decision to look for and accept employment.