Simply fixing up the kitchens and bathrooms in low-income housing leads to a massive 8.6% drop in unemployment for the people living there.
March 25, 2026
Original Paper
Building More Than Homes: How Interior Housing Upgrades Catalyze Welfare and Investment
SSRN · 6399298
The Takeaway
An RCT found that minor interior physical upgrades had a causal effect on labor market outcomes, reducing unemployment and household debt while improving mental health. This suggests that physical living conditions are a much larger bottleneck for economic participation than previously realized.
From the abstract
We evaluate a qualitative housing improvement programupgrades to kitchens, floors, and bathrooms-using a cluster randomized controlled trial with 1,163 low-income urban households across three Colombian cities. The Hogares Saludables program, implemented by a private-sector firm, combines physical improvements with a 40-hour construction and life skills training course. Using difference-indifferences with propensity score matching to address baseline imbalances, we find that the intervention imp