Location, Housing and Employment Opportunities. Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial with Vulnerable Youth in France

Abstract

Location and housing decisions often affect labor market perspectives. Better and more affordable housing tends to be further away from employment hubs, thus hampering labor market opportunities. We revisit this question with empirical evidence from a program in the Bas-Rhin region in France that assisted vulnerable youth with both employment prospects (by providing training and job search assistance) and with housing assistance (with support for accommodation search, and with the local authority providing a rent guarantee). We leverage the random assignment of participants to show that while the program was effective in improving housing and accommodation conditions (suggesting that it managed to remove some of the credit and other constraints faced by beneficiaries) it did not lead to significant improvements in labor market outcomes. We show that beneficiaries improved their housing conditions, but also that they moved to low employment opportunity areas with which they however express to be satisfied. We discuss alternatives to lessen the potential conflict between the program’s two main objectives.

Keywords: Vocational trainingHousing subsidiesLocationActive labor market policies