Homelessness in France: Labour market implications

• Main Author: Arup Mitra
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Urbanistični inštitut RS 2011-01-01
• Series: Urbani Izziv
• Subjects: homeless; jobless; labour market; housing market; France
• Online Access: http://urbani-izziv.uirs.si/Portals/uizziv/papers/urbani-izziv-en-2011-22-01-003.pdf

This paper analyses homelessness in France with regard to three major mutually interacting sets of factors: labour-market strains, illegal migration and institutional inadequacy. Macroeconomic challenges have resulted in the loss of jobs and subsequent labour-market hardships, and these have tended to affect those without adequate skills. As a result, labour-market problems together with a lack of social capital and adequate housing at affordable prices, accompanied by insufficient institutional support, has resulted in increased homelessness. All of this indicates that there should be active government intervention in the housing market in order to create space for the relatively weaker section of the population in the growth process, which is often unequal. Another important issue is how to create jobs with positive growth in real wages because, without adequate purchasing power, simply providing housing would mean transferring poverty from one space to another.