Do neighbourhoods influence long-term
labour market success? A comparison of adults who grew up in different public
housing projects
by Philip Oreopoulos
Family and Labour Studies Division
Analytical
Studies Branch research paper series, No. 185
This paper examines whether
long-run labour market outcomes depend on residential environment among adults
who grew up in subsidized housing in Toronto.
The housing program in Toronto
provides a full spectrum of neighbourhood quality types to measure outcome differences,
and offers a real-life example of large scale neighbourhood quality reform. A
primary advantage with this approach is that, conditional on participation in
public housing, residential choice is substantially limited. Families that applied
for public housing could not specify which project they wished to be housed in
and were constrained to what was offered based on availability at the time they
applied and by family size. Unlike previous housing mobility experiments, the
availability of administrative tax records are used to measure both short and
long run outcomes.
The results indicate almost no difference in educational
attainment, adult earnings, income, and social assistance participation between
children from different public housing types. Average outcomes, estimated wage
distributions, and outcome correlations among unrelated project neighbours show
no significant neighbourhood impact. In contrast, family differences seem to matter
a great deal.
View
the article in the Daily about this publication.
View
the full publication.
You need to use the free Adobe Reader to view PDF documents. To view (open) these files, simply click on the link. To download (save) them, right-click on the link. Note that if you are using Internet Explorer or AOL, PDF documents sometimes do not open properly. See Troubleshooting PDFs. PDF documents may not be accessible by some devices. For more information, visit the Adobe website or contact us for assistance.
