Why Should we Integrate Income and Employment Support? A Conceptual and Empirical Investigation

The integration of active labour market policies within income support schemes – such as unemployment insurance and social assistance – has been a key component of social protection in high-income countries since the 1990s, with a rich literature reviewing its effects and implementation characteristics. Today, although this approach has become prevalent in many middle-income economies, its conceptual and practical application has not been studied in detail outside of high-income countries. This paper conceptualizes, for the first time, the implementation of integrated approaches, focusing on low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). We first develop a conceptual framework to understand how integrated policies can address labour market challenges, exploring the theoretical effects they exert on selected labour market and social dimensions. We then contrast these theoretical expectations with findings from the empirical literature on the effectiveness of integrated approaches. While many empirical studies find positive effects across different labour market dimensions, this is not a universal finding. To reconcile this discrepancy, we investigate the design and implementation of integrated approaches across LMIC and identify factors which contribute to their effectiveness.