Behaviorally informed interventions can increase take-up of public employment services, but conversion remains challenging: insights from an RCT in British Columbia, Canada

Low take-up of government services continues to challenge public investments in social services. Behaviorally informed interventions, so-called nudges, can overcome barriers that keep eligible individuals from accessing services. We report results from a pre-registered randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test email-based interventions to increase the take-up of publicly funded employment services in British Columbia, Canada. Our RCT design distinguishes between getting people ‘to-the-door’ (awareness and interest) and ‘through-the-door’ (enrollment). We find that emails with concise information that route individuals directly to online enrollment are most effective. The best-performing interventions more than doubled enrollment within 14 days, relative to a control group that received no communication. Using machine learning identify subgroups within the population who benefit most from our interventions. Yet despite these positive effects on take-up, we find that converting expressions of interest into enrollments remains a challenge. To increase take-up, policymakers must identify the nature of the challenge: getting people to-the-door or through-the-door. We also contribute to current debates about the quality of public service delivery.