Excluded Before Arrival: Labour Informality, Foreign Nationality, and Housing as a Barrier to Immigrant Integration in Chile

Housing access is a decisive but underexamined dimension of immigrant integration, shaping whether newcomers achieve belonging or remain confined to spatial and institutional margins. This study examines informal settlements (campamentos) in Chile, which have grown by 75.9% between 2017 and 2020, reaching 120,584 families by 2024–2025, of whom 39.3% are international migrants. Using logistic regression on the 2022 CASEN national survey, this research identifies labour informality and foreign nationality as the characteristics most strongly associated with residence in informal settlements. International migrants show odds of residing in informal settlements approximately twice those of Chilean nationals (OR = 2.06 for Latin American and 2.09 for other foreign nationals), and self-employment is associated with moderately but significantly higher odds relative to formal public-sector employment (OR = 1.49). Campamento residence is treated as an indicator of housing exclusion that may constrain broader integration processes, within a multidimensional integration framework. These associations are consistent with the operation of Chile’s demand-side subsidy model, which conditions housing access on documented income and legal residency status, as a contributor to the exclusion of the populations that the integration policy is meant to serve. Region was modelled as a categorical factor, revealing substantial territorial heterogeneity independent of household characteristics, and a joint test of the interaction between occupational category and nationality was significant, suggesting that labour-market position and national origin may intersect rather than operate as fully independent axes of exclusion. The article argues that immigrant integration may be constrained while housing systems remain filtered through labour formality requirements, and proposes reforms—expanding subsidy eligibility, removing residency thresholds, and decentralising housing governance—as evidence-informed proposals aligned with SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).