The paper “Make a Wish: How a De-Institutionalised Care Programme Shaped the Dynamics of Women’s Aggregate Labour Market Outcomes in Croatia,” authored by Marko Lucić of the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb and Jakša Puljiz of the Institute for Development and International Relations, was published in the Journal for Labour Market Research on 20 July 2026. The paper is available open access.
The study analyses the effects of the “Zaželi” programme, an intervention aimed at employing unemployed women without tertiary education to provide assistance and care to older people. Rather than focusing solely on the outcomes of individual participants, the research examines the programme’s aggregate effects on local labour markets.
Using a difference-in-differences approach, the authors assessed the programme’s impact on women’s long-term unemployment, employment outside the programme, and labour force participation rate. The results indicate a significant reduction in the share of long-term unemployed women, with a more persistent effect emerging approximately two years after a municipality entered the programme. Some of the short-term changes were associated with the programme’s implementation cycle and with participants returning to the unemployment register after their programme-supported employment ended.
The study found no evidence that the programme reduced women’s employment opportunities in other jobs, meaning that no displacement of regular employment was detected. At the same time, no significant effects were identified on women’s employment outside the programme or on their overall labour force participation rate. The findings therefore suggest that the programme played an important social and activation role, while also showing that temporary, publicly funded employment does not necessarily lead to stronger integration into the regular labour market.
The paper also provides methodological recommendations for evaluating large-scale labour market interventions, particularly regarding the timing of evaluations, data availability, and the need to monitor multiple indicators at the local level.
The paper is available open access on the Springer Nature website at the following link:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12651-026-00438-0
