・The Effect of Self-Development of the Unemployed on Job Acquisition: Empirical Analysis of Robustness and Heterogeneity of the Effects
The Bulletin of the Graduate School of Education of Waseda University, 33(1) 23-34, 2025.
Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of self-development activities on employment acquisition among non-employed individuals, focusing on the robustness and heterogeneity of the effect. Although Japan's unemployment rate remains relatively low compared to other countries, supporting the employment of non-employed individuals continues to be a major issue in the labor market. In recent years, in addition to public vocational training, voluntary self-development has also been suggested as a potential means of improving employment outcomes. However, since the early 2010s, few empirical studies have examined the effects of self-development, and existing studies have not reached consistent conclusions due to limitations such as selection bias and data constraints.
To address these issues, this study employs a fixed-effects logit model incorporating inverse probability weighting (IPW) to minimize the influence of selection bias and unobserved factors, thereby estimating the robust effect of self-development on employment acquisition. Furthermore, the study conducts subsample analyses by gender and life stage to examine the heterogeneity of the effects.
The results confirm that self-development has a statistically significant and robust positive effect on employment acquisition among non-employed individuals in recent years. The subsample analyses also suggest that the effect is particularly pronounced among married women and women with children—groups that are relatively disadvantaged in the process of employment acquisition. These findings highlight the importance of supporting self-development, especially for disadvantaged groups among the non-employed.