Open AccessMaking summer matter: The impact of youth employment on academic performance
Author(s) -
Schwartz Amy Ellen,
LeosUrbel Jacob,
McMurry Joel,
Wiswall Matthew
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
quantitative economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.062
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1759-7331
pISSN - 1759-7323
DOI - 10.3982/qe883
Subject(s) - lottery , test (biology) , academic achievement , medical education , demographic economics , psychology , mathematics education , economics , medicine , microeconomics , paleontology , biology
This paper examines New York City's Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). SYEP provides jobs to youth ages 14–24, and due to high demand for summer jobs, allocates slots through a random lottery system. We match student‐level data from the SYEP program with educational records from the NYC Department of Education and use the random lottery to estimate the effects of SYEP participation on a number of academic outcomes, including test taking and performance. We find that SYEP participation has positive impacts on student academic outcomes, and these effects are particularly large for students who participate in SYEP multiple times.