IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csa/wpaper/2015-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Enabled to Work: The Impact of Government Housing on Slum Dwellers in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Franklin

Abstract

This paper looks at the link between housing conditions and household income and labour market participation in South Africa. I use four waves of panel data from 2002-2009 on households that were originally living in informal dwellings. I find that those households that received free government housing later experienced large increases in their incomes. This effect is driven by increased employment rates among female members of these households, rather than other sources of income. I take advantage of a natural experiment created by a policy of allocating housing to households that lived in close proximity to new housing developments. Using rich spatial data on the roll out of government housing projects, I generate geographic instruments to predict selection into receiving housing. I then use housing projects that were planned and approved but never actually built to allay concerns about non-random placement of housing projects. The fixed effects results are robust to the use of these instruments and placebo tests. I present suggestive evidence that formal housing alleviates the demands of work at home for women, which leads to increases in labour supply to wage paying jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Franklin, 2015. "Enabled to Work: The Impact of Government Housing on Slum Dwellers in South Africa," CSAE Working Paper Series 2015-10, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
  • Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2015-10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:a59e09ad-62b8-42e6-b7fb-4d2c7e85502b
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brian A. Jacob, 2004. "Public Housing, Housing Vouchers, and Student Achievement: Evidence from Public Housing Demolitions in Chicago," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 233-258, March.
    2. Abhijit Banerjee & Sebastian Galiani & Jim Levinsohn & Zoë McLaren & Ingrid Woolard, 2008. "Why has unemployment risen in the New South Africa?1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 715-740, October.
    3. Gharad Bryan & Shyamal Chowdhury & Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, 2014. "Underinvestment in a Profitable Technology: The Case of Seasonal Migration in Bangladesh," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(5), pages 1671-1748, September.
    4. Marie Huchzermeyer, 2003. "A legacy of control? The capital subsidy for housing, and informal settlement intervention in South Africa," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 591-612, September.
    5. Esther Duflo, 2003. "Grandmothers and Granddaughters: Old-Age Pensions and Intrahousehold Allocation in South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 17(1), pages 1-25, June.
    6. Victoria Hosegood & Anne Case & Cally Ardington, 2009. "Labor Supply Responses to Large Social Transfers: Longitudinal Evidence from South Africa," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 22-48, January.
    7. Jeremy Greenwood & Ananth Seshadri & Mehmet Yorukoglu, 2005. "Engines of Liberation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(1), pages 109-133.
    8. Sandrine Rospabé & Harris Selod, 2006. "Does city structure cause unemployment ? The case study 0f Cape Town," Post-Print halshs-00146467, HAL.
    9. Jalan, Jyotsna & Ravallion, Martin, 2003. "Does piped water reduce diarrhea for children in rural India?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 112(1), pages 153-173, January.
    10. Paul Collier & Anthony J. Venables, 2013. "Housing and Urbanization in Africa: unleashing a formal market process," CSAE Working Paper Series 2013-01, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    11. Galiani, Sebastián & Gertler, Paul J. & Undurraga, Raimundo & Cooper, Ryan & Martínez, Sebastián & Ross, Adam, 2017. "Shelter from the storm: Upgrading housing infrastructure in Latin American slums," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 187-213.
    12. Galiani, Sebastian & Schargrodsky, Ernesto, 2010. "Property rights for the poor: Effects of land titling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 700-729, October.
    13. Guy Michaels & Dzhamilya Nigmatulina & Ferdinand Rauch & Tanner Regan & Neeraj Baruah & Amanda Dahlstrand, 2021. "Planning Ahead for Better Neighborhoods: Long-Run Evidence from Tanzania," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(7), pages 2112-2156.
    14. Gronau, Reuben, 1977. "Leisure, Home Production, and Work-The Theory of the Allocation of Time Revisited," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1099-1123, December.
    15. Taryn Dinkelman, 2011. "The Effects of Rural Electrification on Employment: New Evidence from South Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3078-3108, December.
    16. Matias D. Cattaneo & Sebastian Galiani & Paul J. Gertler & Sebastian Martinez & Rocio Titiunik, 2009. "Housing, Health, and Happiness," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 75-105, February.
    17. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    18. Case, Anne & Deaton, Angus, 1998. "Large Cash Transfers to the Elderly in South Africa," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1330-1361, September.
    19. Alix Peterson Zwane & Michael Kremer, 2007. "What Works in Fighting Diarrheal Diseases in Developing Countries? A Critical Review," CID Working Papers 140, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    20. Gilles Duranton & Anthony J. Venables, 2018. "Place-Based Policies for Development," NBER Working Papers 24562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Lall, Somik V. & Lundberg, Mattias K.A. & Shalizi, Zmarak, 2008. "Implications of alternate policies on welfare of slum dwellers: Evidence from Pune, India," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 56-73, January.
    22. Mary R. Tomlinson, 1998. "South Africa’s New Housing Policy: An Assessment of the First Two Years, 1994–96," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 137-146, March.
    23. Strauss, John, 1986. "Does Better Nutrition Raise Farm Productivity?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(2), pages 297-320, April.
    24. Benjamin Marx & Thomas Stoker & Tavneet Suri, 2013. "The Economics of Slums in the Developing World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(4), pages 187-210, Fall.
    25. McKenzie, David & Seynabou Sakho, Yaye, 2010. "Does it pay firms to register for taxes? The impact of formality on firm profitability," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 15-24, January.
    26. Klonner, Stefan & Nolen, Patrick J., 2010. "Cell Phones and Rural Labor Markets: Evidence from South Africa," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Hannover 2010 56, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    27. Ravallion, Martin & Wodon, Quentin, 2000. "Does Child Labour Displace Schooling? Evidence on Behavioural Responses to an Enrollment Subsidy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 158-175, March.
    28. Baum-Snow, Nathaniel & Ferreira, Fernando, 2015. "Causal Inference in Urban and Regional Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 3-68, Elsevier.
    29. Erica Field, 2005. "Property Rights and Investment in Urban Slums," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 279-290, 04/05.
    30. Picarelli, Nathalie, 2019. "There Is No Free House," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 35-52.
    31. Banerjee, Abhijit & Duflo, Esther & Qian, Nancy, 2020. "On the road: Access to transportation infrastructure and economic growth in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    32. Newey, Whitney K, 1990. "Semiparametric Efficiency Bounds," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(2), pages 99-135, April-Jun.
    33. Simon Franklin, 2015. "Location, search costs and youth unemployment: A randomized trial of transport subsidies in Ethiopia," CSAE Working Paper Series 2015-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    34. Mariaflavia Harari & Maisy Wong, 2018. "Slum Upgrading and Long-run Urban Development: Evidence from Indonesia," 2018 Meeting Papers 367, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    35. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    36. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    37. Florencia Devoto & Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & William Parienté & Vincent Pons, 2012. "Happiness on Tap: Piped Water Adoption in Urban Morocco," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 68-99, November.
    38. Field, Erica Marie, 2005. "Property Rights and Investment in Urban Slums," Scholarly Articles 3634150, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    39. Christopher F Baum & Mark E. Schaffer & Steven Stillman, 2007. "Enhanced routines for instrumental variables/generalized method of moments estimation and testing," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(4), pages 465-506, December.
    40. Erica Field, 2007. "Entitled to Work: Urban Property Rights and Labor Supply in Peru," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 122(4), pages 1561-1602.
    41. Heckman, James J, 1990. "Varieties of Selection Bias," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 313-318, May.
    42. Murtazashvili, Irina & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2008. "Fixed effects instrumental variables estimation in correlated random coefficient panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 539-552, January.
    43. Barnhardt, Sharon & Field, Erica & Pande, Rohini, 2014. "Moving to Opportunity or Isolation? Network Effects of a Slum Relocation Program in India," IIMA Working Papers WP2014-11-01, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department.
    44. Herbert Werlin, 1999. "The Slum Upgrading Myth," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 36(9), pages 1523-1534, August.
    45. Galiani, Sebastián & Gertler, Paul J. & Undurraga, Raimundo & Cooper, Ryan & Martínez, Sebastián & Ross, Adam, 2017. "Shelter from the storm: Upgrading housing infrastructure in Latin American slums," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 187-213.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guy Michaels & Dzhamilya Nigmatulina & Ferdinand Rauch & Tanner Regan & Neeraj Baruah & Amanda Dahlstrand, 2021. "Planning Ahead for Better Neighborhoods: Long-Run Evidence from Tanzania," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(7), pages 2112-2156.
    2. Paul Collier & Anthony J. Venables, 2013. "Housing and Urbanization in Africa: unleashing a formal market process," CSAE Working Paper Series 2013-01, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    3. Adriana Camacho-González & Jorge Enrique Caputo-Leyva & Fabio Sánchez-Torres, 2022. ""Un nuevo comienzo": El impacto del Programa Vivienda Gratuita sobre la calidad de vida de los hogares beneficiarios," Documentos CEDE 20077, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    4. Adriana Camacho-González & Jorge Enrique Caputo-Leyva & Fabio Sánchez-Torres, 2022. "A new beginning: The effect of the free housing program on the quality of life of beneficiary households," Documentos CEDE 20303, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    5. Manea, Roxana Elena & Piraino, Patrizio & Viarengo, Martina, 2023. "Crime, inequality and subsidized housing: Evidence from South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    6. Kerianne Lawson, 2023. "Using property rights to fight crime: the Khaya Lam project," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 47(2), pages 269-302, June.
    7. Zhang, Li & Xie, Lunyu & Zheng, Xinye, 2023. "Across a few prohibitive miles: The impact of the Anti-Poverty Relocation Program in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    8. Kumar, Tanu, 2021. "The housing quality, income, and human capital effects of subsidized homes in urban India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    9. Leonard Le Roux & Johanna Choumert-Nkolo, 2023. "Internal Migration and Energy Poverty," Working Papers 2023.01, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    10. Posada, H. M. & García, A. F. & Londoño, D, 2022. "The external effects of public housing developments on informal housing: The case of Medellín, Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo 20416, Universidad del Rosario.
    11. Omer Ozgen, 2020. "Impact of Slum Redevelopment Projects on Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Addis Ababa," CSAE Working Paper Series 2020-23, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    12. Simon Franklin, 2015. "Location, search costs and youth unemployment: A randomized trial of transport subsidies in Ethiopia," CSAE Working Paper Series 2015-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    13. Li Shang & Xiaoling Zhang & Decai Tang & Xiaoxue Ma & Chunfeng Lu, 2023. "The Impact of Housing Support Expenditure on Urban Residents’ Consumption—Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-24, June.
    14. Bradlow, Benjamin H. & Polloni, Stefano & Violette, William, 2023. "Public housing spillovers: Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    15. Zou, Jing & Deng, Xiaojun, 2022. "Housing tenure choice and socio-economic integration of migrants in rising cities of China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Manea, Roxana Elena & Piraino, Patrizio & Viarengo, Martina, 2023. "Crime, inequality and subsidized housing: Evidence from South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    2. Brueckner, Jan K. & Lall, Somik V., 2015. "Cities in Developing Countries," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1399-1455, Elsevier.
    3. Sandrine Mesplé-Somps & Laure Pasquier-Doumer & Charlotte Guénard, 2016. "Quel impact des projets de réhabilitation urbaine sur les conditions de vie ? Le cas d’un bidonville à Djibouti," Working Papers 20160002, UMR Développement et Sociétés, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement.
    4. Galiani, Sebastián & Gertler, Paul J. & Undurraga, Raimundo & Cooper, Ryan & Martínez, Sebastián & Ross, Adam, 2017. "Shelter from the storm: Upgrading housing infrastructure in Latin American slums," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 187-213.
    5. Laura Jaitman, 2015. "Urban infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean: public policy priorities," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 24(1), pages 1-57, December.
    6. Alves, Guillermo, 2021. "Slum growth in Brazilian cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    7. Picarelli, Nathalie, 2019. "There Is No Free House," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 35-52.
    8. Meeks, Robyn, 2018. "Property Rights and Water Access: Evidence from Land Titling in Rural Peru," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 345-357.
    9. Wang, Shing-Yi, 2014. "Property rights and intra-household bargaining," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 192-201.
    10. Brueckner, Jan K., 2013. "Slums in developing countries: New evidence for Indonesia," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 278-290.
    11. Paniagua, Victoria, 2022. "When clients vote for brokers: How elections improve public goods provision in urban slums," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    12. Herrmann, Tabea & Leckcivilize, Attakrit & Zenker, Juliane, 2021. "The impact of cash transfers on child outcomes in rural Thailand: Evidence from a social pension reform," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    13. Galiani, Sebastián & Gertler, Paul J. & Undurraga, Raimundo & Cooper, Ryan & Martínez, Sebastián & Ross, Adam, 2017. "Shelter from the storm: Upgrading housing infrastructure in Latin American slums," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 187-213.
    14. Simon Franklin, 2015. "Location, search costs and youth unemployment: A randomized trial of transport subsidies in Ethiopia," CSAE Working Paper Series 2015-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Choda, Amreen & Schoofs, Annekathrin & Verrinder, Noel, 2020. "Improving housing conditions: Labelled loans in Kenya and Uganda," Ruhr Economic Papers 878, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    16. Baum-Snow, Nathaniel & Ferreira, Fernando, 2015. "Causal Inference in Urban and Regional Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 3-68, Elsevier.
    17. Brueckner, Jan K. & Mation, Lucas & Nadalin, Vanessa G., 2019. "Slums in Brazil: Where are they located, who lives in them, and do they ‘squeeze’ the formal housing market?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 48-60.
    18. Harris Selod & Lara Tobin, 2018. "The spatial sorting of informal dwellers in cities in developing countries: Theory and evidence," Working Papers halshs-01703178, HAL.
    19. Ravallion, Martin, 2008. "Evaluating Anti-Poverty Programs," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 59, pages 3787-3846, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2015-10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Julia Coffey (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.