Evidence and Gap Map

The Youth Employment Evidence and Gap Map

Welcome to our Evidence and Gap Map (EGM) – the world’s largest mapping resource that shows the global evidence base on what works to improve youth skills, employment and job quality.

If you’re helping young people to find meaningful employment, we hope it will be a useful tool to find where evidence exists and where there are gaps. Please scroll down for more information about how to use the map. To find out more about the EGM, listen to our podcast hosted by our CEO, Anna Smee with Howard White, CEO of the Cambell Collaboration and Chris Goulden, our Director of Impact and Evidence.

Why we need an Evidence and Gap Map

To help young people from marginalised backgrounds into meaningful work, we need to make sure they’re getting the best possible support. To do this, we need to know which approaches are most effective.

This map helps us to identify where there are gaps in evidence so we can focus research on areas that build our understanding of what works to help young people into employment.  The map provides a visual representation of the evidence available, gives access to studies to support decision-making, and is a foundation for developing evidence-based products and services.

What the Youth Employment Evidence and Gap Map tells us

Our map gives you a visual representation of the quantity and quality of evidence for different interventions. It provides an easy way to search for and find relevant studies from across the world.

While the Evidence and Gap Map shows you what evidence is available for different interventions, it can’t tell you whether a specific programme has been effective in achieving its intended results. To find this out, you’ll need to read the studies themselves.

 

How to use the map

The map is organised by intervention categories (as row headings on the left) and outcomes (as column headings at the top). The main intervention categories are: training, up-skilling and re-training/skilling, support to employment, decent work policies, information and entrepreneurship promotion and financing.

The contents of each cell are divided according to whether the study is a primary study or a review, and the confidence we have in study findings based on a critical appraisal of the study. The size of the bubble is proportional to the number of studies.

The map is interactive and when you click on a ‘bubble’, a text box appears. It lists the individual studies included in that particular type of intervention and outcome combination. In the text box there is a brief description of each study (similar to, but not identical to the abstract) and a link that takes you to the website containing the full study.

 

Filtering results

Filters (top left) help you refine your search for different studies. You can search the studies in the and Evidence and Gap Map by:

• The country the programme was run in
• The quality of the study (how robust the evidence is)
• Whether the study is completed or ongoing

Clicking on a row or column headings gives the list of studies in that row or column. Clicking on a cell gives the list of studies in that cell.

You can also search for studies by different outcomes and interventions. To do this, click the ‘View records’ tab at the top of the screen.

Clicking on a study gives its bibliographic information, summary and a link to the original source.

Updates to the map

In January 2022, we updated the map with process evaluations and further impact studies on labour market interventions that focus on improving youth skills, employment and job quality, following a systematic review process.

We will also contribute to the evidence base by adding evaluations of Youth Futures funded interventions to the map. 

Please sign up to our newsletter for updates (below) and come back to check out our combined Evidence and Implementation Issues Gap Map.