Location, housing and employment opportunities

Housing conditions, residential location, and employment are key determinants of individual welfare, particularly for vulnerable populations facing credit constraints and information frictions. We examine how housing assistance affects employment outcomes using a randomized controlled trial in France that provided vulnerable youth (aged 18–25) with both job search assistance and housing support, including rent guarantees. The program successfully improved housing conditions: beneficiaries experienced better accommodation stability, reduced precarious situations, and increased satisfaction with their housing. However, despite substantial social worker support, the program did not improve employment rates, contract types, or earnings. Strikingly, beneficiaries moved to neighborhoods with objectively worse employment opportunities and lower socioeconomic indicators, yet reported higher satisfaction with their residential areas. This apparent paradox reveals that beneficiaries appear to prioritize housing affordability and conditions over employment access. Our results suggest that successful interventions may need to explicitly balance housing improvements with maintaining access to employment opportunities. • RCT shows housing and job search aid for French vulnerable youth improved housing but moved them away from job hubs. • Better housing came at cost of worse job access, revealing spatial mismatch trade-off. • Beneficiaries report high satisfaction with neighborhoods despite lower socioeconomic indicators. • Neighborhood quality has multiple dimensions beyond standard socioeconomic measures. • Housing-employment program shows tension between improving housing and job market access. Better programs should take these multiple dimensions into account.