Residential segregation and unemployment : the case of Brussels

This paper investigates the causal effects of the spatial organization of Brussels on unemployment propensities. Using 1991 Census data, we estimate the unemployment probability of young adults while taking into account personal, household and neighborhood characteristics. We solve the endogeneity of residential locations by restricting our sample to young adults residing with their parents, and evaluate the potential remaining bias by conducting a sensitivity analysis. Our results suggest that the neighborhood of residence significantly increases a youngster probability of being unemployed, a result which is quite robust to the presence of both observed and unobserved parental covariates.