Long-term outcomes of vocational rehabilitation programs: Labor market transitions and job durations for immigrants

This paper employs a flexible dependent hazard rate model to examine the transition to work, job durations and subsequent transitions into and out of the welfare system for all the individuals who participated on a vocational rehabilitation program in Norway during 1995-2002. The effect of being a non-western immigrant on the probability of finding, keeping, and re-finding a job is shown to differ substantially across genders, being particularly favorable for women relatively recently arrived from Africa, Asia or Eastern Europe. I find substantial non-western immigrant business cycle sensitivity regarding the transition(s) to employment but not to unemployment.