Researchers examined whether a program that provides people who are incarcerated with services both prior to and after their release could improve employment prospects and reduce recidivism. One year later, the program increased employment and reduced the likelihood of re-arrest. However, earnings among the people with a criminal conviction who were employed were low and left many below the poverty line.

Researchers have partnered with a non-profit debt management provider and IPA to evaluate whether reframing difficult, long-lasting tasks, such as paying off large debts, into more easily-attainable “sub-goals” can help borrowers accomplish their goals of debt repayment and increase client retention in a debt management program.

Employers in the low-skill and entry-level job market often lack information on job seekers’ abilities, which can reduce interview invitations and job offers for job seekers, especially for disadvantaged groups such as women. Researchers partnered with the South African Department of Labour to evaluate the impact of reference letters on employer response rates and on employment outcomes for unemployed young people.

Researchers compared the effects of face-to-face and virtual peer interaction on the submission and quality of business proposals by individuals from 49 African countries enrolled in an online entrepreneurship course. They found that face-to-face networks and the virtual interaction of groups of entrepreneurs of the same nationality increased the submission of business proposals to a funding competition, but that virtual interaction had no effect when groups were formed with entrepreneurs of different nationalities. Virtual interaction among entrepreneurs of the same nationality was also found to increase the quality of submitted business proposals.

Many firms rely on social networks to find potential employees, and to find out more information about them. In Kolkata, India, researchers tested whether using social networks for recruitment was an effective strategy for finding highly qualified candidates in a laboratory setting. They found that high-ability participants only referred high-skilled candidates when offered performance incentives, and low-ability participants failed to refer high-skilled candidates under any incentive structure.

Those self-employed in microenterprises, who often report low profits and own few assets, account for fifty percent of the labor force in low-income countries. Researchers are conducting a randomized evaluation to test the effect of relieving constraints to microenterprise relocation on business income in Kampala, Uganda.

Workers without social connections may be disadvantaged in the labor market because employers favor applicants who have been referred. Researchers tested three interventions in an online labor market to investigate why employers are more likely to hire referred workers. First, referrals provide a signal that workers will perform well and have lower turnover. Referred workers outperformed and had lower churn than non-referred workers with the same observable characteristics. This is true even at companies to which they were not referred. Second, being referred makes workers more productive. Referred workers were particularly productive when they work with their referrers. However, workers’ concerns about their reputation with their referrer or their referrer’s position at the firm did not lead workers to exert more effort.

Researchers ran an evaluation in Niger to determine if training adults to use mobile phones could improve their learning outcomes when added to a standard adult education program. The mobile phone program increased student writing and math test scores relative to the standard curriculum.