Residential Segregation and Women’s Labor Market Participation: The Case of Santiago De Chile

Women’s labor market participation in Chile ranks among the lowest in Latin America. In a country where over 90 percent of the population lives in segregated cities, where employment opportunities cluster in affluent neighborhoods, residential sorting has surprisingly been neglected as an explanatory factor. This article addresses this omission by calculating the effects of residential segregation on labor market participation among less-educated caregivers. Using an OLS fixed effects model, the study finds that segregation entails adverse spatial mismatch effects on labor market participation. No other sub-population is affected in this manner. Hence, residential segregation contributes to the consolidation of three types of inequalities. First, it reproduces gendered inequalities within less-educated households. Second, in the context of increasing labor market participation among more-educated women, residential segregation further increases inequalities between low-income and affluent households. Finally, it deepens geographical inequalities between marginalized and non-marginalized households. HIGHLIGHTS Residential segregation has excluded less-educated caregiving women from paid work. Less-educated communities reside in regions with low job density. A spatial mismatch is a gendered phenomenon insofar as mobility is gendered. Segregation does not affect men’s or more-educated women’s labor force participation. Segregation aggravates economic, geographic, and gender inequalities.