Research

We examine the long-term effects of moving to a high-poverty neighborhood on children’s outcomes, using evidence from a slum clearance program in Chile between 1979 and 1985. During the dictatorship, slum-dwelling families were forced to relocate to low-income areas. Two-thirds of them were relocated to housing projects on the city’s periphery, while one-third received housing at their original locations. We find that 35 years post-policy, displaced children receive 0.81 fewer years of schooling, earn 9% less, and experience higher labor informality compared to non-displaced children. Distance from origin, disrupted social networks, and lower home values explain the negative displacement effects.

This paper studies the short- and medium-term effects of extending parental leave on women's labor market outcomes. I exploit a reform implemented in Chile in 2011 that extended women's parental leave from 84 to 168 days. I combine administrative data on leave claims with employer-employee data to estimate the effect of a longer leave on women's wages and employment seven years after childbirth. My results show that women exposed to the reform extend parental leave in 78 days and reduce the use of other sick-leave claims. Exposed mothers are more likely to be formally employed for four years after childbirth and conditional on employment, their wages are higher in the medium term. The positive employment effects are driven by single women and workers without a college education, while married women are more likely to transition to more flexible jobs. My results suggest a longer leave protects single mothers from leaving the formal labor market after childbirth, and thus reduces the child penalty in the medium term.

We study the effects of forced displacement on adults’ mortality. We use evidence from a slum clearance program implemented in Santiago, Chile, between 1979 and 1985 that forced slum families to relocate to public housing in low-income areas. Two-thirds of families were relocated to new housing projects on the periphery of the city, and the rest received housing at their initial location. We compare the outcomes of displaced and non-displaced adults from slums with the same probability of being cleared, and find displacement increases mortality: Displaced adults die 30% more per year and the effect is relatively constant across 35 years after the intervention. Increases in mortality appear in the entire age distribution for both men and women, but causes vary by gender. Women are more likely to die of disease-related causes such as heart disease or cancer, and men are more likely to die of external/violent causes and alcohol and tobacco addiction. Because of higher segregation and lower access to jobs in destination neighborhoods, our results suggest poverty could be the channel to increased mortality among displaced individuals.

The Pinochet dictatorship radically changed Chile’s public housing policies in the 1980s. This chapter examines the characteristics of these policies, focusing on affordable housing and slum clearance. The chapter is divided into two parts. The first documents the changes to affordable housing policies and the characteristics of public housing units built after 1975. The second describes policies targeting slum dwellers and discusses the existing economic evidence on the impact of building public housing in peripheral neighborhoods on families’ and children’s socioeconomic outcomes.