Residential Segregation and Unemployment: The Case of Brussels

Abstract

disparities opposing city centres and peripheries. In the US for instance, inner cities are usually poor and the catalyst of many social problems, whereas suburbs are more well-off. Brussels exhibits a similar spatial structure since its inner city concentrates unemployed workers and disadvantaged communities, including many unskilled workers and ethnic minorities (see for example, Vandermotten et al., 1999;Thomas and Zenou, 1999; GoffetteNagot et al., 2000;Kesteloot et al., 2001). Residential Segregation and Unemployment: The Case of BrusselsClaire Dujardin, Harris Selod and Isabelle Thomas [Paper first received, February 2003; in final form, March 2007] AbstractThis paper investigates the causal effects of the spatial organisation of Brussels on unemployment propensities. Using census data at the individual level, the unemployment probability of young adults is estimated while taking into account personal, household and neighbourhood characteristics. The endogeneity of residential locations is solved by restricting the sample to young adults residing with their parents; the potential remaining bias is evaluated by conducting a sensitivity analysis. The results suggest that the neighbourhood of residence signifi cantly increases a youngster's probability of being unemployed, a result which is quite robust to the presence of both observed and unobserved parental covariates.

Migratory movements and dynamics of neighbourhoods in Brussels

“…Reinforcing the social mix in these poor neighbourhoods is seen as a means of reducing these 'neighbourhood effects'. In the case of Brussels, it has been shown that the geographical concentration of social difficulties reinforced these difficulties, in particular as regards access to employment [Dujardin et al, 2008]. In other words, all other things being equal, a person from one of the poorest neighbourhoods has more difficulty in finding a job than a person from a rich neighbourhood.…”

Addressing transport barriers to work in low income neighbourhoods: A review of evidence and practice

“…That said, some authors who have examined the spatial mismatch hypothesis have broadened the scope to include such matters (see, for example, Dujardin et al, 2008;Gobillon et al, 2007;Martin, 1997;Weinberg, 2000). Indeed, residential segregation formed the original starting point for James Kain (1968), the pioneer of spatial mismatch studies back in the 1960s.…”

School choice and local embeddedness in Brussels: the neighbourhood effect assessed through administrative files

“…However, in Brussels, two researches question the connection between neighbourhood and mobility. Dujardin, Selod and Thomas (2008) showed that unemployment is exacerbated by residential segregation and that living in a deprived neighbourhood increases the unemployment probability of young adults. However, these deprived neighbourhoods of Brussels are not disconnected from jobs which are concentrated in these areas.…”

“…Although there is some interdependence with the nearest cities in the south, Brussels is separated from the rest of the WalloniaBrussels Federation by a strip of (Dutch-speaking) land of at least 3.5 km, creating a geographical discontinuity. Actually, Brussels is institutionally defined as a bilingual region enclosed in a Dutch-speaking region, though an extended urban area includes the nearest municipalities from both Flanders and Wallonia (two other regions in Belgium, principally monolingual) (Dujardin, Selod & Thomas, 2008).…”