The Hartz reforms and the German labor force

In this paper, we conduct a comparative case study to estimate the impact of the Hartz reforms on German labor market. We find that the reform did not have a robust causal impact on the overall unemployment rate, which supports some of the existing literature. Our main focus, however, is on labor force participation. Additionally, we disaggregate the labor force by gender and age groups to capture the differential impact of Hartz by worker type. We find that the Hartz reforms raised labor force participation (LFP) specifically among women and the relatively older workers in the workforce.