The Effect of Location on Finding a Job in the Paris Region

There are large spatial disparities in unemployment durations across the 1,300 municipalities in the Paris region (Ile-de-France). In order to characterize these imbalances, we estimate a proportional hazard model stratified by municipalityon an exhaustive dataset of all unemployment spells starting in the first semester of 1996. This model allows us torecover a survival function for each municipality that is purged of individual observed heterogeneity. We show thatonly 30% of the disparities in the survival rates relate to observed individual variables. Nearly 70% of the remainingdisparities are captured by local indicators, mainly segregation indices.