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The Participation of Young Women in
Employment and Training Programs
Margaret Simms
When the federal government initiated employment and training
programs in the 1960s, the focus was on assisting adult males who had
been displaced from their jobs by technological change or who were
structurally unemployed. Even in youth programs, where displacement
and long-term unemployment were less important, the emphasis was on
males. It was thought that their employment needs were greater and
that unemployment was likely to lead to criminal behavior among young
men, but not among young women.
Over time, the economic needs of women, especially young women,
became an issue. Increased labor force participation by women and the
"feminization of poverty" made policymakers and others aware of the
importance of providing meaningful employment and training opportunities
to young women. This interest has been reinforced by studies that
indicate that unemployment among young women can have a deleterious
effect on their future employment and earnings (Taggart and Linder,
1980~. In the absence of intervention, however, many young women will
not have favorable labor market experiences. This is especially true
for black women; the data indicate that labor force and employment
conditions for black teenage women have been deteriorating over the
past 25 years (Stormsdorfer, 1980; Swinton and Morse, 1983~.
This paper reviews the participation of young women in employment
and training programs. The first section describes the variety of
programs that youths have participated in, the level of participation
by young women, and the characteristics of young female participants
compared with their male counterparts. The second section reviews the
type of service received by participants and examines program
outcomes. The final section summarizes the findings and suggests
subjects for additional research.
Margaret C. Simms is director of the Minorities and Social Policy
Program at The Urban Institute. The opinions expressed in this paper
are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily
represent the views of The Urban Institute and its sponsors.
462
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463
YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN EMpLo~qENT AND TRAINING PROGRAMS
The federal government's post-World War II involvement in employ-
ment and training programs began with the Manpower Development and
Training Act (MDTA) of 1962. Government training programs designed
especially for youths started with the creation of the Neighborhood
Youth Corps (NYC) and the Job Corps through the Economic Opportunity
Act of 1964. When the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA)
was passed in 1973, most of the existing youth programs were included
in the consolidation of employment and training activities although
they remained separate activities. In 1977 the Youth Employment and
Demonstration Projects Act (YEDPA) added additional programs targeted
on youths. This legislation expired in 1981 and all youth training
programs were subsumed under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) in
1982. (Job Corps and the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) are
separate programs under JTPA.)
Young people have not only enrolled in youth programs but have also
participated in the full range of employment and training programs
since the mid-1960s. Between 1965 and 1972 youths were between 20 and
nearly 50 percent of enrollees in such programs as the PUD] ic
Employment Program, the Work Incentive Program (WIN), MDTA, Job
Opportunities in the Business Sector (JOBS), and the Concentrated
Employment Program (CEP). Youths (under age 22) constituted between 48
and 62 percent of enrollees in CETA Title I in the years 1975 to 1981
and more than 20 percent of enrollees in Titles II and VI during the
same years.1
Female Participation
Studies of participation in employment and training programs by
women indicate that women have not been treated equally over the
history of these programs. Between fiscal 1965 and fiscal 1978, women
were less than one-half of program participants (Harlan, 1980~. In
fiscal 1978 women were 45 percent of enrollees in locally operated
programs. By the last quarter of fiscal 1979, women were more than 50
percent of enrollees in all local programs except on-the-job training.
Very few studies have focused exclusively on participation by young
women, but estimates of their participation can be constructed from
data on youth programs and from female and youth participation in adult
programs.
Table 1 shows female participation in youth programs prior to the
1973 passage of CETA and for selected programs under CETA and YEDPA.
Before 1973, the largest youth program was the Neighborhood Youth
After 1979, Titles I, II, and VI should be interpreted as Titles
II-B and C, II-D, and VI, respectively. No data are yet available on
JTPA enrollment. See Burbridge (1983) for a history of youth
participation in employment and training programs.
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464
TABLE 1 Female Participation in Selected Youth Programs, 1965-1980
Percentage Female
1965
1972
1978 1980
1965-1972
Neighborhood Youth Corps
In-school youths
Out-of-school youths
Job Corps
1978-1980
Job Corps
Youth Employment and Training Programs
Youth Community and Conservation
Improvement Projects
Summer Youth Employment
45.2
47.7
27.0
29.0
51.3
24.8
51.4
NA
52.5
24.8
48.1
SOURCES: L.C. Burbridge (1983) and S.E. Berryman, W.K. Chow, and
R.M. Bell (1981).
Corps. Over 4.5 million youths enrolled in NYC between 1965 and 1972,
and between 45 and 48 percent of them were young women. In the much
smaller, residential Job Corps program, young women were only 27
percent of enrollees. By 1978, women were 51 percent of enrollees in
the summer youth program (SYEP) and in Youth Employment and Training
Programs (YETP), but still lagged in Job Corps enrollment. Even so,
they may still have been underrepresented in SYEP and YETP, since it
~. ~
is
Yea anal cney were be percent or the eligible population (Berryman
et al., 1981~. Female enrollment in Youth Community Conservation and
Improvement Projects (YCCIP) was only 24.8 percent in both 1978 and
1980, although it is estimated that young women were about 46 percent
of the eligible population for YCCIP. This discrepancy is thought to
be due to sexual stereotyping, since YCCIP involved intensive manual
labor, more so than did other programs (Burbridge, 1983~.
Overall, young women have done slightly better than adult women in
terms of participation in employment and training programs. However,
this is primarily the result of their greater representation in youth
programs. In adult CETA programs, women have been a smaller proportion
of enrollees under baa 29 then Shiv have he - n of "nrm1 1^~= =~ O~ -~A
over (Table 2).
~.z ^ ~ ~ ~ ~ _ _ _ _ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~car ~ ~ ~
~ _,
An examination of the enrollment of youths in CETA and other employ-
ment and training programs by race and sex reveals some minor differ-
ences by sex, but far less than might be expected. Data from the 1977
Continuous Longitudinal Manpower Survey (CLMS) and Current Population
Survey {CPS) reveal that women were just under 47 percent of the
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465
TABLE 2 Female Participation in Adult CETA Programs, 1978
Women as a Percentage of Participants
Aged 22 and Over Under Age 22
Title I 52.5 48.1
Title II 41.6 34.7
Title VI 37.4
Total 45.5 48.6a
aIncludes Summer Youth Employment Program, Youth Community
Conservation and Improvement Projects, and Youth Employment and
Training Projects.
SOURCE: S.E. Berryman, W.K. Chow, and R.M. Bell (1981~.
enrollees in CETA programs and 50.3 percent of the youth population
(aged 22 and under) (Table 3~. Most of the discrepancy was among white
women, whose participation in CETA was well below that of white men.
Black and Hispanic women, whose CETA participation exceeded their
representation in the population, participated at rates comparable to
those of their male counterparts. The National Longitudinal Survey
(NLS) of Young Americans (see Borus, 1983:120) produced roughly
comparable estimates of participation in all government employment and
training programs by youths between the ages of 14 and 21 during 1978
and early 1979.
Characteristics of Program Participants
In addition to concern over their lower participation in government-
sponsored employment and training programs, it has been said that the
young women are better qualified than the young men who enter the
programs. This may occur because there is more "creaming among women
than among men. In creaming, the program sponsor selects those
applicants who, in the sponsor's view, are the best qualified of those
eligible to participate in the program. The young women who are
selected into the program may have to meet higher standards in terms of
education or prior experience. However, there could also be differences
between young men and young women in terms of who chooses to apply for
the employment and training programs. For example, if young women have
different perceptions about their likely participation in the labor
force as adults, they might also differ in their interest in enrolling
in employment and training programs. In a study done for The Rocke-
feller Foundation, The Urban Institute examined the characteristics of
young women who participated in employment and training programs and
compared them with the characteristics of young men who participated
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466
TABLE 3 Percentage Distribution in the CLMS and CPS Populations by Race
and Sex for Individuals Under Age 23, Fiscal 1977
Percentage of CLMS Percentage of CPS
Females Males Females
Males
White17.8024.1640.4840.45
Black23.1823.936.946.36
Hispanic5.944.962.922.86
Total46.9253.0550.3449.67
NOTE: These calculations exclude other minorities (i.e., nonblack,
non-Hispanic minority groups).
SOURCE: Data from L.J. Bassi, M.C. Simms, L.C. Burbridge, and C.L. Betsey
(1984).
and nonparticipant youths. The objective of the study was to identify
possible differences and to determine which differences, if any,
affected the probability of participation in government-sponsored
employment and training programs (Simms and Leitch, 1983~.
The Urban Institute study was based on data from the National
Longitudinal Survey of Young Americans. The NLS is a good data set for
analyzing youth participation in employment and training programs
because it allows one to compare participants with nonparticipants.
The data set includes more than 12,000 individuals aged 14 to 21 in
1979. The survey oversampled minorities and low-income whites, the
groups most likely to participate in employment and training programs.
Just over 2,000 respondents had participated in at least one government-
sponsored employment and training program prior to the 1980 survey
interviews. Although participation rates were higher among minority
groups--one-third of the blacks interviewed had participated in a
program, compared with 11 percent of whites and 24 percent of
Hispanics--there were no substantial differences by sex (Table 4~.
In general, young women in the sample had higher levels of
educational attainment than young men. Overall, young men in the
sample were more likely to have less than a high school education (49.2
percent of the men versus 44.5 percent of the females in the sample)
and were less likely to have completed any formal education beyond high
school (19.2 percent for males versus 23.8 percent for females) (see
Table 5~. This differential was similar for all ethnic groups, except
Hispanics. For those who had participated in government programs, the
educational gap was much wider. Among participants between January
1978 and spring 1980, there were large differences between men and
women; a larger percentage of the female than the male participants had
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467
TABLE 4 Percentage of the Population Participating in Employment
and Training Programs Prior to 1980
Men
Single Multiple
Women
~.
Single Multiple
Program Programs Total Program Programs Total
White 7.6 3.3 10.9 7.5 3.8 11.3
Black 21.3 11.8 33.1 19.6 12.3 31.9
Hispanic 13.4 10.7 24.1 15.1 8.3 23.4
Other 12.0 5.1 17.1 7.6 5.2 12.8
NOTE: Based on National Longitudinal Survey sample of youths aged 14
to 21 who answered this question.
SOURCE: M.C. Simms and M.L. Leitch (1983).
completed high school and acquired some college education. With the
exception of Hispanics, the gender differences in educational attainment
were greater for government-program participants than for nonpartici-
pants.
Educational gaps are also apparent when another data set is used.
For example, a comparison of 1977 youth enrollees in CETA with youths
in the Current Population Survey reveals that while young men in
general were more likely to be high school dropouts, the differences
between men and women in CETA programs were somewhat greater, at least
among whites: white male enrollees had dropout rates that were at
least twice as high as those of white women who were enrolled in CETA
programs (Bass) et al., 1984~.
To investigate the possibility that young women who entered
government programs had different qualifications because of differences
in willingness to participate in the program, Simms and Leitch (1983)
analyzed the attitudes of young women toward work as part of the
Rockefeller study. Since young women have two options not available to
young men--childbearing and, generally, work in the home--young women
as a group might be less interested in employment and training
programs. Researchers had hypothesized that women who participate in
employment and training programs have less traditional attitudes than
nonparticipants and are also more likely to expect to be in the labor
market for most of their adult years. This was the case for women who
participated in programs prior to 1978. However, since it is possible
that program participation and maturation affected their attitudes, it
is more useful to concentrate on those who participated after January
-~978, since the information available on respondents' attitudes is most
likely to precede participation. Here we find that women who were
participants in government programs after 1977 were no less likely to
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468
TABLE 5 Highest Grade Completed, by Sex, 1979
MalesFemales
Total Sample 100.Oa100.Oa
Less than high school 49.244.5
High school 31.531 .8
More than high school 19.223.8
Enrollees in Government Programs after 1977 100.0100.0
Less than h igh school 80.469.4
High school 8.927.8
More than high school 10.72.8
NOTE: Based on National Longitudinal Survey sample of youths aged 14
to 21 who answered this question.
aTotals do not add to 100.0 due to rounding.
SOURCE: M.C. Simms and M.L. Leitch (1983).
think that a woman's place is in the home than were women who did not
participate in training programs. And they were more likely to think
that a woman's place is in the home than those who participated in
private or military training programs (Table 6~. However, when asked
what they expect to be doing at age 35, government-program participants
were more likely to say "working," indicating that they expect economic
reality to be a factor in their actions.
Another factor that might affect participation by young women is
family responsibilities. Young women with children or other family
responsibilities may not be able to participate in programs, either
because they lack child care or because they cannot take time away from
nonmarket work. In 1979 the vast majority of the respondents in the
NLS sample lived with their parents. Young women, however, were less
likely to live with their parents than young men and were more likely
to be married or living on their own. There were large racial
differences in living arrangements beginning at age 18; blacks of both
sexes were much less likely to live on their own than members of other
racial or ethnic groups.
The women in the sample, both married and unmarried, were much more
likely to have children than the men in the sample; 17 percent of the
women in the sample had at least one child, compared with 6.9 percent
of the men. There were 496 women in the sample who were heads of
households (7.8 percent of all women in the sample).
Participants in government training programs were no more likely to
be married than participants in the sample as a whole. They were,
however, more likely to have children. A significant proportion of
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469
TABLE 6 Women's Responses to Statement "A Woman's Place Is in the
Home," by Participant Status (in percentages)
Time and Strongly Strongly
Participant Status Disagree Disagree Agree Agree
Pre-1978
Nonparticipantsa 39.5
Participants in other
training programs
Participants in
government programs
Post-1978
Nonparticipants 39.0
Participants in other
training programs
Participants in
government programs
44.5 11.6 4.3
41.1 47.3 8.5 3.1
46.7 42.4
7.3 3.6
44.8 11.7 4.5
53.4 39.3 5.9 1.4
39.3 45.5 10.7 4.5
NOTES: Based on National Longitudinal Survey sample of youths aged 14
to 21 who answered this question.
aTotals do not add to 100.0 due to rounding.
SOURCE: M.C. Simms and M.L. Leitch (1983~.
women who were heads of households had participated in some type of
employment or training program.
The last phase of the study of the determinants of participation in
employment and training programs was a multivariate analysis. The main
objective of this analysis was to determine which factors are likely to
affect participation in employment and training programs, whether those
factors differ for men and women, and whether after adjusting for all
the relevant factors there is still a sex differential. Included in
the regression analysis were independent variables in six broad
categories: (1) background and demographic characteristics, (2)
education, (3) family responsibilities and attitudes, (4) financial
need, (5) work experience (including prior participation in training
programs), and (6) local employment conditions.
Based on past studies of women's participation in adult programs,
we expected to find that young women were less likely to participate in
employment and training programs and that young women who did partici-
pate in programs were likely to be better qualified than their male
counterparts. In our regression analysis, we found some evidence to
indicate that young women were less likely to be enrolled in
government-sponsored employment and training programs, other things
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470
being equal (Table 7~. This is clearly the case for enrollment in the
pre-1978 period. After January 1978, the significance of sex is not as
clear. In equations that did not include participation prior to 1978
as an independent variable, the coefficient for sex was negative and
significant. Once prior participation was entered into the equation,
the coefficient for sex, while still negative, became insignificant.
The interpretation of this finding is not obvious. On the one hand, it
may mean that previous participants in programs were more adept at
obtaining a slot in another program, and since women were less likely
to have had that prior experience, they fared worse than their male
counterparts. On the other hand, it may mean that sex differences in
participation continue to exist and are similar in nature to those in
existence prior to 1978 and the lagged variable is picking up this
connection.
To the extent that it exists, differential participation by women
does not seem to be related to perceptions about future participation
in the labor market. None of the variables that were used to measure
work expectations proved to be significant. In contrast to women who
entered private or military training, women in government programs were
no less likely than nonparticipants to think that a woman's place is in
the home. Therefore, there is no evidence to indicate that women who
enter government programs have expectations of greater labor force
attachment than those who do not or that different attitudes about work
might explain why there are differences in participation between young
men and young women. The presence of dependents is negatively
correlated with participation for both men and women.
In general, the variables that are important in explaining
participation are the same for men and for women. For the most part,
the relationships are consistent with a "scraping" hypothesis rather
than a "creaming" hypothesis. The probability of participation is
negatively correlated with total family income and socioeconomic status
(measured by father's education). It is positively correlated with
prior enrollment in remedial education, with the number of periods of
no work, with the number of months on welfare (for women), and with
being black or Hispanic. We found no evidence to indicate that the
women who entered government programs were better qualified than their
male counterparts.
PROGRAM TREATMENT AND PROGRAM OUTCOMES
An analysis of female participation in employment and training
programs would be incomplete without an assessment of the treatment
young women receive, how it differs from that of young men, and the
effects of those treatments on some set of outcomes. This section
focuses on analyses that have been done in this area. Although a
variety of data sources were used, most analyses relied on information
available from the CLMS and from the 1979 NLS because those data sets
include enrollees in different types of employment and training
programs and also provide information on groups who have not
participated in programs.
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471
TABLE 7 Summary of Ordinary Least-squares Runs on Participation in Government
Training, Post-1978, With Lagged Participation Variables
Full Sample Males
F
Statistic
Ba
FB Statistic
Females
F
B Statistic
AGE79b-.01415.55*-.01713.35*-.0092.93**
BLACK.10174.89*.09231.18*.11143.84*
HISPANIC.06219.36*.0322.62.09020.47*
OTHERACE-.0110.36.0060.05.0230.81
FAMINCOME-.00338.36*-.00328.98*-.0029.52*
SEX-.0111.37-------
EMPLOYRATE1.0111.55.0141.16.0080.35
EMPLOYRATE2.10110.90*.1137.08*.0964.74***
MARRIED.0471.34-.0630.90-.0380.53
DIVORCED-.0913.46**-.0890.92-.0902.37
DEPENDENTS-.0589.82*-.0433.03**-.0787.66*
HIGHGRADE1-.0232.35-.0251.47-.0221.10
HIGHGRADE2-.0170.67-.0301.10-.0100.13
WORKEXPECT-.0010.00-.0180.39.0180.42
NOWORK.04158.17*.03828.30*.04328.14*
LIVEWITH1-.0240.82-.0481.55.0060.03
LIVEWITH2-.0130.09-.0410.46.0230.15
LIVEWITH3-.0809.91*-.12211.08*-.0350.97
FATHERGRAD1-.0317.76*-.0334.67***-.0293.39**
FATHERGRAD2-.0429.69*-~0425.08***-.0465.49***
MOTHERWORK1-.0110.77.0020.01-.0272.20
MOTHERWORK2-.0010.00.0130.44-.0160.64
FEMALEWK14-.0275.65***-.0232.04-.0303.45**
FAMILYATT.0010.01.0020.05-.0020.05
REMEDIAL.0368.25*.0231.97.0537.57*
MOSWELFARE.0064.69***.0030.25.0074.69***
GOVTPRE78.219214.62*.216112.87***.22097.52*
PRIVPRE78.0250.88.0130.12.0421.21
CONSTANT 0.478 0.596 0.318
NUMBER 6,172 3,208 2,964
R2 .14 .15 .13
.
*F significant at .01 level.
**F significant at .10 level.
***F significant at . 05 level.
aUnstandardized coefficient.
bVariable names on following page.
SOURCE: M.C. S. imms and M.L. Leitch (1983~.
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472
TABLE 7 (continued)
Variable Definitions
AGE79
BLACK
HISPANIC
OTHERACE
FAMINCOME
SEX
EMPLOYRATE1
EMPLOYRATE2
MARRIED
DIVORCED
DEPENDENTS
HIGHGRADE1
HIGHGRADE2
WORKEXPECT
NOWORK
LIVEWITH1
LIVEWITH2
LIVEWITH3
FATHERGRAD1
FATHERGRAD2
MOTHERWORK1
MOTHERWORK2
FEMALEWK14
respondent's age in 1979
respondent's race; white is the omitted
variable
total family income of respondent's
household in 1978
respondent's sex
1979 unemployment rate for labor market
of current residence; rates under 6
percent is omitted variable
marital status, single is omitted
variable
number of dependents in 1978
highest grade completed by respondent in
1978; less than high school is omitted
variable
work expectations in 5 years
periods of no work in 1978
who individual lived with at age 14
highest grade completed by respondent's
father; less than high school is
omitted variable
number of hours respondent's mother
workedin 1978; zero hours omitted
adult female in household worked for
pay when respondent was 14
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476
TABLE 9 Youth Distribution of Obtained CETA Services within
Desired Service (in percentages)
In-Program
Assignment
Basic Skills Job Training Job
Sex FY76 FY77 FY78 FY76a FY77 FY78 FY76a FY77 FY78a
Classroom Male 37.3 55.S 71.0 35.3 42.7 43.1 9.1B.08.0
training Female 81.4 74.1 71.8 34.8 54.6 52.5 8.610.511.6
(CT)b
On-the-job Male 4.4 2.3 3.4 8.6 9.7 12.1 7.2 10.6 8.1
training Female 3.5 1.5 2.7 3.7 4.2 5.7 4.5 6.3 6.2
(OJT)C
Youth work
Male 56.8 41.4 22.3
experience Female 15.1 22.6 23.4
(YWE)d
Public service Male
employment Female 0.0 1.8
(PSE)e
1.5 0.5
50.339.235.1 63.4 52.5 56.8
51.936.236.6 74.4 63.2 63.6
5.88.49.7 20.3 28.9 27.1
9.55.05.2 12.4 20.0 18.7
NOTE: Includes only participants who expressed their desired CETA services.
aTotals do not add to 100.0 due to rounding.
bIncludes CT and YETP CT in fiscal 1978.
CIncludes OJT and YETP OJT in fiscal 1978.
dIncludes YWE, YETP Other, and YCCIP in fiscal 1978.
eIncludes PSE sustainment, PSE nonsustainment, and PSE unknown in fiscal 1978.
SOURCE: S.E. Berryman, W.K. Chow, and R.M. Bell (1981:67).
Occupational Segregation
Both the Rand study and the Ohio State analysis found considerable
segregation in occupational training under CETA and other government
programs. Among youths enrolled in employment and training programs in
1978, Crowley et al. (Bows, 1983:20, 162-163) found that 80 to 85
percent of all enrollees in professional, clerical, and sales training
programs were women, while 78 percent of the enrollees in skilled labor
and craft training were men. The low percentage of women in the latter
programs is not unexpected given that only 25 percent of women in the
1979 NLS survey aspired to atypical jobs. And among those young women
who were interested in nontraditional jobs, most were interested in
managerial and professional careers; few indicated an interest in
blue-collar jobs. Young women from more disadvantaged families, who
are the target group for government programs, are less likely to aspire
to nontraditional occupations and, without encouragement, may be
unlikely to pick employment or training slots in traditionally male
fields.
Berryman et al. (1981:44-45) also found CETA enrollees to be very
traditional in their job preferences, although that seemed to decrease
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477
somewhat with time. In 1976, 82 percent of the young women wanted
traditionally female jobs and only 4 percent wanted traditionally male
jobs. The remaining 14 percent wanted jobs that were categorized as
mixed (neither predominately male nor predominately female). By 1978,
the proportion wanting traditionally female jobs dropped to 60 percent,
those desiring traditionally male jobs rose to 15 percent, and those
seeking mixed jobs rose to 24 percent. Over the same period, CETA
began to place more young women in traditionally male jobs and fewer in
traditionally female jobs, and the shifts were greatest for minority
females.
Supportive Services
The service received most often by youths is job counseling. About
one-half of both men and women received counseling. Medical services,
transportation, and child-care services were not received by large
proportions of the youth population, but the need for such services
among the youth population is not known. Female heads of household
were more likely to receive health and child-care services than others,
but less than one-half of that group received any services in 1978
(Bows, 1983; Simms and Leitch, 1983~.
Program Outcomes
The expected outcomes of program participation have been and
continue to be diverse. In addition to increased postprogram earnings
(the primary goal for adults), other objectives include increased
educational attainment (lower school dropout rates), a reduction in
early childbearing, reduced welfare dependency, and reduced criminal
activity. Success in achieving these multiple goals, however, is often
difficult to measure.
To assess the net impact of program participation, information is
needed on the outcomes and variables, other than program participation,
that are likely to affect outcomes for both the preprogram and post-
program periods. Moreover, comparable information is needed for a
group of individuals who have similar preprogram characteristics but
who were not enrolled in the program. Such comprehensive information
is seldom available. Therefore, the outcomes examined most often are
postprogram earnings and employment because more data are available on
those outcomes, both for program participants and for individuals who
may be part of a comparison group.
Earnings and Employment Gains
One fairly consistent conclusion, at least in evaluations of
outcomes for adults, is that women and the economically disadvantaged
receive the greatest gains from participation in employment and training
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478
programs. 2 This was true for the early programs established under
MDTA and has continued to be true under CETA (Perry et al., 1975;
Bassi, 1982; Congressional Budget Office and National Commission for
Employment Policy, 19821. There is no consistency, however, in the
assessment of which program activities have the greatest effect or the
mechanism by which those gains are made. For example, some studies
conclude that OJT and skills training have the highest payoffs (Harlan,
1980), but other studies point out that the employment gains of those
two programs decay over time (U.S. Department of Labor, 1977~. A
recent study using the Continuous Longitudinal Manpower Survey,
however, found that the net earnings gains for women do not vary by
program activity but are in the range of $800 to $1,300 for all
programs. Moreover, the gains do not appear to decrease over time
(Congressional Budget Office and National Commission for Employment
Policy, 1982~.
Findings from a recently completed study by The Urban Institute
(Bass) et al., 1984), which used the 1977 CLMS, indicate that many of
the programs that work for adults also work for youths. Participation
in PSE programs increased earnings for white women by $882 to $990 in
the first postprogram year and by $1,035 to $1,144 in the second
postprogram year.3 For black women in PSE the gains were $1,126 to
$1,196 in the first year and $608 to $678 in the second postprogram
year, and for Hispanic women in PSE the significant gain was $1,705 to
$1,862 in the first postprogram year. Black women also benefited from
participation in OJT; they showed gains of $861 to $877 in the first
year and of $1,389 to $1,406 in the second year after leaving the
program. The only significant gain for men was for white men in OJT,
who experienced an increase in earnings of $452 to $463 in the first
postprogram year. Most of the gains for women were the result of
increases in time in the labor force, time employed, and hours worked;
only 3 to 10 percent of the gains were attributable to increased
average hourly wages. A larger proportion of the gains for white men
(16 percent) was attributable to increases in hourly wages and less to
additional time employed. Even though women benefited more from CETA
participation in terms of gains in earnings, mean postprogram Social
Security earnings for young women were lower than those for young men.
Youths in other programs either showed no gain or a loss in
earnings compared with a matched sample drawn from the CPS. However,
even individuals in those programs increased their labor force activity
between preprogram and postprogram years and showed gains in reported
2Note that some of the studies cited measured gross earnings and/or
employment impact, and others measured net earnings and/or employment
gains (using a control group). This changes the magnitude but not the
sign of the results for women.
3However, these findings are not definitive since the Chow tests
indicated a significant difference between young white women who
participated in CETA and their comparison group.
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479
hourly wages. It would appear that the participants' failure to make
gains relative to the comparison group is due to the fact that the
increases in labor force activity of CETA participants are not as large
as the gains made by nonparticipants. This may or may not be the
result of non-labor-market activity, such as time spent in school. It
is impossible to confirm these assumptions, since no postprogram infor-
mation on the labor force activity or school status of members of the
comparison group was available.
Using the 1976 CLMS to measure the effect of program activity on
employment immediately after leaving the program, Harlan and Hackett
(1984) found that programs that enrolled more men than women (such as
OJT) provided the greatest possibility for immediate postprogram
employment and that those with the largest proportion of women had the
lowest possibilities. If population groups were shifted among programs
so that minorities and women were distributed like white men, post-
program employment for those groups would increase, although it would
still lag that for white men. (No separate analysis was done for
youths.)
Hahn and Lerman (1983) used the NLS to analyze the effect of CETA
programs on school enrollment and unsubsidized job experience. They
found that while CETA did seem to increase school enrollment among
women and nonwhite men, it had very little positive effect on unsub-
sidized employment. Youths who had not been enrolled in CETA had
higher rates of unsubsidized employment and had higher earnings from
unsubsidized employment. This was especially true for women, although
young female CETA participants who mixed school and work had higher
unsubsidized earnings per week in the first year. By 1980 young female
CETA participants who were both in school and working were more likely
to have unsubsidized jobs than their non-CETA counterparts.
Other Outcome Measures
Very little information on outcome measures other than employment
and earnings is available on CETA activities as a group. Bassi et al.
(1984) did examine the effect of CETA on welfare dependency for CETA
enrollees in 1977 who were between the ages of 18 and 65. The results
of the analysis show that CETA does decrease the level of welfare
dependency, but it does not lead to removal from the welfare rolls (at
least not under the regulations in force in 1978 and 1979~. In 1978
the estimated annual welfare savings for women who headed households
was $250. This finding is consistent with the fact that women received
the highest gains in earnings from CETA participation. No significant
welfare savings were found for men. This is consistent with the finding
that there was not, in general, a substantial gain in earnings for men.
A recently completed analysis of the long-term effects on youths of
government-subsidized employment and training programs used the NLS to
examine the impact of participation in five program activities (sub-
sidized employment, classroom skills training, basic education, job
counseling, and other) on employment, earnings, educational attainment,
and welfare dependency (Crowley, 1984~. The effect of participation in
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480
1978, 1979, or 1980 on 1981 status or outcomes was found to be insig-
nificant for earnings and hourly wages for both men and women, although
it seemed to lead to subsidized employment at a later date. Participa-
tion in a basic educational program was positively related to obtaining
a General Equivalency Diploma (GED) for both men and women and to school
enrollment for women. Participation in a skills training program had a
negative effect on subsequent school enrollment for young women. Young
women who received job counseling (in 1979) or participated in sub-
sidized employment programs (in 1980) actually were more likely to be
on welfare and to receive larger amounts of welfare than nonpartici-
pants. This could be related to greater knowledge of the benefit
programs to which they might be entitled. Women who were in programs
in 1978 had lower levels of dependency on welfare in 1981, which
indicates a possible lag between program participation and movement off
welfare among younger women.
There have been some evaluations of the effect of individual
employment and training programs on a variety of outcome measures. One
such study is the evaluation of the Job Corps conducted by Mathematica
Policy Research Corporation (Mallar et al., 1980~. This study found
that in addition to increasing employment and earnings, Job Corps also
increased the probability of high school completion and college
enrollment and decreased criminal behavior and welfare dependency. For
young women, participation in Job Corps also appeared to delay family
formation and to reduce the incidence of extramarital childbearing.
The impact on employment, earnings, education, and welfare payments was
greater for women without children than for those with children. This
may be due to the fact that the burden of family responsibilities on
those with children limited their labor force participation after
leaving the program.
Another program for which a variety of outcome measures has been
evaluated is the Youth Incentive Entitlement Pilot Projects (YIEPP).
This program, initiated under YEDPA, guaranteed jobs to eligible 16- to
19-year-olds (part-time jobs during the school year and full-time jobs
during the summer) if they stayed in or returned to school and met
specified attendance and performance standards. A comparison of men
and women eligible to participate found that the participation rates
for young men and young women were quite similar and so were the
average number of months in the program (Farkas et al., 1984~. There
were substantive gains in earnings for both men and women during
program participation, mainly due to increased employment. However,
the difference in earning gains between young women and young men in
the postprogram period was significant--gains in weekly earnings for
men ($13.66) were twice those for women. Since nearly one-half of the
young women in YIEPP had had at least one child by the time they
reached the age of 19, it was thought that home responsibilities may
have had a negative effect on labor force participation among women.
However, the rate of childbearing, while quite high, varied sub-
stantially from site to site within YIEPP, and on average, the 45
percent rate for YIEPP participants was comparable to the 47 percent
rate for the comparison group e The study concluded, therefore, that
the program had no effect on the rate of childbearing among this group
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481
of young, low-income women and that the high rate of childbearing
probably explained at least part of the difference in earnings gains
between male and female participants in YIEPP. The latter conclusion
seems to be consistent with the fact that the gap between the weekly
earnings of men and women in the program increases as they grow older.
Even though the gains to young women are smaller than those to young
men, however, female program participants still do better than women in
the comparison group.
While YIEPP did increase labor force participation and lower
unemployment, it did not seem to increase school enrollment. This may
have been due, in part, to the failure to attract or retain high school
dropouts. However, the program did not appear to increase dropout
rates either (which had been true of some other programs), since there
was a school enrollment requirement.
A program that puts less emphasis on job training, per se, and more
emphasis on a system of supportive services is Project Redirection,
jointly sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the U. S. Department of
Labor. This program sponsors or brokers services for pregnant teen-
agers and teenage mothers (under age 18) who are without high school
diplomas and who are in welfare families. The final report on the
impact of Project Redirection has not been released yet but findings
from the 12-month follow-up study indicate positive results from
program participation in terms of employment and education, with slight
decreases in the incidence of pregnancy (Polit et al., 1983~. Since 12
months is a short follow-up period for evaluating program outcomes,
especially since many individuals were still enrolled in the program,
the findings must be regarded as tentative. What may be of greater
interest is that the program provides an effective set of support
services, such as child care and housing assistance, that frequently
are not available in other programs and are obviously felt to be needed
by teenage mothers.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Government employment and training programs have been utilized by
both young men and young women over the past 20 years. While differ-
ences in participation based on sex were quite clear during the early
years, they are less clear now. A review of young women's participa-
tion in government-sponsored employment and training programs reveals
that the level of participation has increased in recent years to a
level approaching parity in most programs, although a few programs,
like Job Corps, still lag the others. Although young women who enroll
in government programs have somewhat higher educational levels than
young men, this appears not to be a significant factor in program
enrollment. The factors that affect young women's enrollment appear to
be quite similar to those that affect young men. However, there still
appear to be differences in the treatment received by young women and
young men. Women are more likely to be involved in classroom training
or work-experience programs that are less likely to integrate them into
the job market, and they continue to be trained in traditionally female
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482
occupations. Few young women receive supportive services other than
counseling, and even women with children receive low levels of support
in terms of child care.
Young women, like their adult counterparts, benefit more from
participation in employment and training programs than do young men.
They receive higher employment and earnings gains from the activities
in which they are least likely to be assigned, such as on-the-job
training and public service employment. Most of these gains come from
increased time employed, however, and not from higher wage rates.
Evaluations of selected programs, like Job Corps, also reveal gains in
such areas as educational attainment, reduced welfare dependency and
criminality, and delayed family formation. Women with children seem to
benefit less from the programs than those without children, perhaps
because family responsibilities prevent them from increasing their
postprogram labor force participation.
This review of studies of young women's participation in employment
and training programs has identified several shortcomings in both our
knowledge and in the operation of employment and training programs.
These shortcomings prompt the following research recommendations:
1. Relatively little is known about the effects of employment and
training programs on nonemployment outcomes, such as educational attain-
ment, welfare dependency, and childbearing patterns. For youths,
especially young women, these outcomes may have greater long-term
economic consequences than the impact programs may have on short-term
employment and earnings. Therefore, more research should be done on
nonemployment outcomes and their link to long-term employment and
earnings gains. While the 1979 NLS has advantages as a data set because
it includes nonparticipants in the sample, precise information on the
programs in which the enrollees participated is scanty. Program-based
data sets, such as the CLMS or the new JTLS, will provide better
information on programs and services received. However, the CLMS
comparison group (drawn from the Current Population Survey) lacks
longitudinal information on outcomes other than participants' earnings.
It is to be hoped that the Job Training Longitudinal Survey (JTLS) data
base, to be developed under JTPA, will not have the same shortcomings.
In the interim period before the JTLS is available, it would be
possible to conduct research on nonemployment outcomes by drawing a
comparison group from the NLS for use with the late CLMS cohorts (1979
and later), since information is available for roughly comparable
periods.
2. Another area in which we lack knowledge concerns the low level
of support services provided to youths. For example, is child care not
provided because it is not requested or because it is not available?
To what extent does nonavailability of child-care services or
transportation reduce program participation, especially among young
women? [An on-going Urban Institute study (Sonenstein and Wolf, 1985)
will provide insight into the relationship between the availability of
child care and employment or participation in education or training
programs.]
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change.
483
In terms of program operation, there are also suggestions for
1. The fact that young women are assigned to different programs
than young men (and disproportionately to those with lower expected
earnings gains) suggests that program operators need to be more
sensitive to possible gender differences in program assignment and that
more emphasis on preprogram counseling might be needed.
2. Related to the above, while today's young women are more likely
to expect to be working during their adult lives than earlier genera-
tions of young women, they are not as open to nontraditional careers as
they need to be if they are to increase their earning power signifi-
cant~y. Employment and training programs (particularly job counseling
programs) should include information about job opportunities in non-
traditional careers and the skills and education needed to enter those
careers. Support and encouragement may also be needed to get more
young women into the training "pipeline" for those occupations.
3. Low-income young women have relatively high birth rates during
their teenage years. While little is known about the effect of
participation in employment and training programs on subsequent
childbearing, we do know that young women with children are less likely
to participate in programs and may receive lower benefits from
participation. More emphasis needs to be placed on outreach and on
facilitating the participation of young mothers in programs.
Moreover, support services (like child care) need to be available to
these women after they leave programs in order to increase their
postprogram labor force participation.
REFERENCES
Bassi, L.J.
1982 CETA--Is It a Cost-Effective Method for Increasing the
Earnings of Disadvantaged Workers? Washington, D.C.: The
Urban Institute.
Bassi, L.J., M.C. Simms, L.C. Burbridge, and C.L. Betsey
1984 Measuring the Effect of CETA on Youth and the Economically
-
Disadvantaged. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute.
Berryman, S.E., W.K. Chow, and R.M. Bell
1981 CETA: Is It Equitable for Women? Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand
Corporation.
Borus, M.E.
1983 Tomorrow's Workers. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books.
-
Burbridge, L.C.
1983 Employment and Training Programs for Youth: An Interpretation
. ~
and Synthesis for Measured Outcomes. Washington, D.C.: The
Urban Institute.
Congressional Budget Office and National Commission for Employment
Policy
1982 CETA Training Programs: Do They Work for Adults? Washington'
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
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484
Crowley, J.E.
1984 Long-term outcomes of government-subsidized employment and
training programs. Pp. 179-212 in P. Baker, S. Carpenter,
J.E. Crowley, R. D'Amico, C. Kim, W. Morgan, and J. Melgosz,
ems.. Pathwav to the Future. Vol. IV. Center for Human
Resources Research. Columbus: Ohio State University.
Parkas, G., R. Olsen, E. Stromsdorfer, L.C. Sharpe, F. Skidmore,
Smith, and S. Merrill
1984 Post-Program Impacts of the Youth Incentive Entitlement
.
Projects. New York: Manpower Development Research
Corporation.
Hahn, A., and R. Lerman
1983 The CETA Youth Employment Record: Representative Findings on
the Effectiveness of Federal Strategies for Assisting
Disadvantaged Youth. Final report to the U.S. Department of
Labor. Center for Employment and Income Studies. Waltham,
Mass.: Brandeis University.
Harlan, S.L.
1980 Sex Differences in Access to Federal Employment and Training
Resources under CETA: An Overview. Working Paper no. 58.
Wellesley, Mass.: Wellesley College Center for Research on
Women.
Harlan, S.L., and E.J. Hackett
1984 Job Training Programs and Employment Outcomes: Effects by Sex
and Race of Participants. Working Paper no. 129. Wellesley,
Mass.: Wellesley College Center for Research on Women.
Mallar, C., S. Kerachsky, C. Thornton, M. Donihue, C. Jones, D. Long,
E. Noggoh, and J. Schore
1980 Evaluation of the Economic Impact of the Job Corps Program.
Second Follow-up Report. Washington, D.C.: ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~
D.A.
ups. Department
of Labor.
Perry, C.R., B.E. Anderson, R.L. Rowan, and H.R. Northrup
1975 The Impact of Government Manpower Programs. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania.
Polit, D.F., M.B. Tannen, and J.R. Kahn
1983 School, Work, and Family Planning. New York: Manpower
Demonstration Research Corporation.
Simms, M.C., and M.L. Leitch
1983 Determinants of Youth Participation in Employment and Training
Programs with a Special Focus on Young Women. Washington,
D.C.: The Urban Institute.
Sonenstein, F.L., and D.A. Wolf
1985 Child Care Policies and Employment Behavior of Welfare
Mothers. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute O '
Stromsdorfer, E.W.
1980 The effectiveness of youth programs: an analysis of the
historical antecedents of current youth initiatives. Pp.
88-111 in B.E. Anderson and I.V. Sawhill, eds., Youth
Employment and Public Policy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall.
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Swinton, D.H., and L.C. Morse
1983 The Source of Minority Youth Employment Problems.
D.C.: The Urban Institute.
Washington
Taggart, R., and B. Linder
1980 Youth employment policy background material. In Vice
President's Task Force on Youth Employment, A Review of Youth
Employment Problems, Programs, and Policies. Vol. 2.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
U.S. Department of Labor
1977 The Work Incentive (WIN) Program and Related Experience_.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
youth employment
