The labour market plans of parenting payment recipients: information from a randomised social experiment

This paper reports the preliminary results of a randomised social experiment conducted by the Department of Family and Community Services involving approximately 5,000 Parenting Payment customers. Three samples of Parenting Payment customers were randomly selected. One sample was asked to voluntarily undergo an interview with a Jobs, Education, and training (JET) adviser, another was compelled to undergo an interview, while the control sample received no information about JET interviews at all. Our results indicate that a widespread policy of compelling individuals to participate in JET interviews affects both the level of participation and the characteristics of those who participate. On the whole, however, there is little evidence that individual responses to the interview differ significantly between those who voluntarily and those who are compelled to attend. Finally, differences in local labour market conditions or perhaps JET advisors themselves appear to play a role in influencing policy outcomes.