SOCI 211 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Sociological Inquiry, Social Capital
3 May 2018
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SOCI 211 – Sociological Inquiry – Week 11
Evaluation Research
Governments adopt policies and need to make judgments about whether these policies are
worthwhile
• Program Evaluation
o What research design should be used to examine the effects of a program?
o What outputs of a program should one take into account when judging its
performance?
o Programs have costs and benefits – how do we judge these against each
other?
o Costs and benefits accrue over time (typically, costs are disproportionately
accrued up front and benefits over time) – how does one take into account
time in the evaluation of a program?
o Some programs have many studies evaluating them – how does one deal
with/synthesize different results from different studies?
• Example: Community employment innovation project (Canada)
o Ran from 1999-2008
o Designed to reduce chronic unemployment
▪ Idea: How successful people were in the labour market is influenced
by social capital
• People who have friends/acquaintances can use these to get
information on job opportunities/how to get that job
▪ 2nd Idea: Broader community engagement in the program would help
o Got funds and employed program participants for a modest pay to beautify
the city, support seniors, the poor, and youth, etc.
▪ Paid for their EI and Workers Comp and benefits
o Randomly select program participants from files of Income Assistance (IA)
and randomly assign to experimental group and control group (to assess
effectiveness)
▪ Problem – “oe people get the eefit ad soe people do’t get
ufair … this is a ethical question
o Methodology:
▪ 1. Directed at individual recipients either experiencing benefits or not
▪ 2. Research comparing communities where project had been
implemented vs. other communities
o Evaluated consequences before program vs. a year and a half after the
program
▪ Results:
• At the end of the program, the employment rates for EI and IA
participants were higher for those who were in the program
• But, when the program ended, they dropped to the same
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• Did not build any social capital
• 14 months, earnings amongst those employed (who had
participated vs. were in the control) were relatively the same
• After the program, those from the sample (both EI and IA)
who were employed were employed in jobs classified as more
skilled
o Despite their earnings being the same
• Attitudes towards employment and welfare had not changed
• EI had more social ties at the end of the program than the
control group
o Not the same for IA people
• Participants in the program were more likely to do volunteer
work
▪ Community results – Matched communities:
• Some increases in average social capital
• Some evidence of greater social cohesion
(Only rather modest benefits)
• More or less no difference in average employment rates,
wages, income, or economic activities
o What to do with this evidence?
▪ Benefit-cost analysis
• Generate a ratio of benefit to cost (or cost to benefit)
• Need at least interval measures for this
• How to go about measuring costs/benefits:
o Put things in the same units
o __
• Example
o Benefits to participants
▪ Total income
▪ Income stability
▪ Expanded social network
• How to compare this to $ (income)???
o Looked at how 1000$ income = 1
unit of life satisfaction
o And 1 unit of social capital = 1
unit of life satisfaction
o So 1 unit of social capital =
comparable to 1000$
o Costs to participants
▪ Leisure time lost
• How to compare this to $ (income)???
find more resources at oneclass.com
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