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This study has found that:

• A large number of EI claimants benefited from the Small Weeks Projects, over 11 percent of all EI claimants in the relevant period;
• The participation rate of female claimants, 14.6 percent, was much higher than the participation rate of male claimants, 7.6 percent;
• The profile of a typical beneficiary of the Small Weeks Projects is a female claimant from a particularly high unemployment region with a history of previous benefit receipt, who has worked approximately 25 percent fewer hours in the qualifying period than the average EI claimant;
• Participation rates were higher in 1998 than in 1997. Formal econometric analysis of the temporal behaviour of the participation rate revealed a pattern that is consistent with learning and adjustment to the program over time;
• The evidence all points to a significant increase in the number of small weeks worked in response to the Projects. The econometric evidence suggests that the average female participant worked between 3.2 and 5.3 additional small weeks, and the average male participant worked between 1.8 and 2.6 additional small weeks, and converted an estimated 1.5 big weeks to small weeks;
• Taken together, the change in the rate calculation formula and the behavioural response to the program increased the income of the average male participant by at most between $495 and $615, and of the average female participant by at most $450 to $750.

We can conclude from these findings that the Small Weeks Projects succeeded in encouraging a significant proportion of EI claimants to work additional weeks during which earnings were low. By encouraging additional work and by eliminating the penalty for small weeks that would have been worked anyway, the program generated increased incomes for these primarily low-income, female claimants in high unemployment regions.

The evidence strongly suggests that the average male participant reduced working hours in some below average big weeks in order to increase both leisure and income. Given the very high effective marginal tax rates on earnings in excess of $150 in below average weeks, this response is unsurprising. This unintended effect of the Small Weeks Projects should be monitored carefully in future.