Evaluation of the Australian Wage Subsidy Special Youth ...

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effect on employment relative to the base of Church of England. 65 Surprisingly, fair to
poor English had a positive effect on employment relative to natural English speakers,
however this was a self-assessed question and there might have been a tendency for those
with non-English-speaking-background to describe their English optimistically 66 , also the
smallest share had fair-poor English so this rests on a small number of cases. Those who
gave opinions expressing a negative attitude towards women in work also had lower
chances of employment – as this is attitudinal material, this may also reflect other
attitudinal features such as a degree of anti-social behaviour. Maternal background in the
plant operative occupations also had a negative effect on employment outcomes.
In the participation equation, age was negative, indicating that older eligible youths had
lower chances of placements – this is in line with the findings in other SYETP literature.
The age of the individual was one of the variables excluded from the employment
equation. The key variable for the selection was however CEP referrals, and this had a
positive impact on placement chances. Other negative effects on placements were from
health problems limiting work and childhood background in a country town. Positive
effects on placement chances came from having highest qualification of year 12
schooling (relative to year 10 schooling base) and a longer qualifying unemployment
period also raised placement chances, in line with the eligibility criteria for SYETP.
Maternal background of plant-operative occupation raised chances of a placement, which
was opposite to the negative effect it had on employment.
3.5 Discussion
It is worth noting, in light of ‘the replication standard’, that no additional information was
needed to carry out this replication. The replication was achieved using only Richardson
(1998) and the supplied data set. For a replication data set to be useful King (1995) notes
that it must include all information necessary to replicate the empirical results. As such,
65 But this effect may arise together with the type of schooling being private – there is a greater share of
Catholic private schools.
66 The base natural English speaking held the greatest share of the 1283 cases (1161 or 91 per cent), with
good English 93 cases or 7 per cent, and fair to poor 29 cases or 2 per cent. In the 104 SYETP cases, only 1
had fair-poor English, while 8 had good English and the rest were native English speakers (unweighted
percentages).