Does privatisation of vocational rehabilitation improve labour market opportunities? Evidence from a field experiment in Sweden

Author: Lisa Laun, And Peter Skogman Thoursie, And

Published in: Journal of Health Economics 2014, vol. 34, pp. 59– 72

Summary of Working paper 2012:2

This paper analyses if privatisation of vocational rehabilitation can improve labour market opportunities for individuals on long-term sickness absence. We use a field experiment performed by the Employment Service and the Social Insurance Agency in Sweden during 2008 to 2010, in which over 4,000 participants were randomly offered private and public rehabilitation. We find no differences in employment rates following rehabilitation between individuals who received rehabilitation by private and public providers. Also the average cost of rehabilitation was essentially equal for the two types of providers. This suggests that there are no large efficiency gains from privatising vocational rehabilitation.