Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

When do summer jobs improve youth outcomes?   There is persuasive evidence that summer employment “works” – and that there is significant heterogeneity in the treatment effect.  Yet, we know little about the underlying determinants of this heterogeneity.  Are some jobs better than others?  Do they reflect differences in the efficacy of the provider, the job itself or the characteristics of the youth?  In this study we use data from the New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) to study why summer jobs are more effective for some kids than others.    

 SYEP provides jobs to youth ages 14-24 through a random lottery system, which creates a treatment and control group and allows us to estimate the causal effects of program participation.  In previous work, we found larger effects for students participating in the second year and even larger effects for those in year three.[1]  Preliminary results also show that student characteristics make a difference.  We find consistent positive and significant impacts for females and for Hispanic students in taking and passing the New York State Regents exams.

 Our study uses student-level data from the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (the SYEP administrating agency) and New York City Department of Education.  Students who attended public schools between 2006 and 2009 were matched to SYEP applicant files giving us approximately 130,000 observations. Each observation has a unique identifier which allows us to track students over their tenure in NYC public schools. For each year in the dataset we have data on school, grade, enrollment in special programs, race/ethnicity, gender, eligibility for free or reduced price lunch and high school exam results by subject.  In addition we have SYEP data on the organization to which they applied, whether the applicant was chosen by the lottery, whether or not they accepted the offer, the number of hours worked each week, and the worksite to which they were assigned.

Summer youth employment programs have been found to not only provide many students with their first workplace experience but have also been found to improve educational achievement and future success.  However, because of limited resources available for the provision of these programs, it is important to understand whether the positive impacts vary for participants and why. These findings will aid in targeting resources to the  jobs or programs that are most effective, or to students who may benefit the most.  These results, therefore, have the potential to maximize the benefits of summer youth employment programs to positively affect the educational outcomes of low-income youth, thereby reducing inequality in education (and potentially later outcomes) between low-income students and their higher-income peers.