Employment Preferences of Favela Residents

We document employment preferences of workers at the margin of informality using open-ended questions and discrete choice experiments in Brazil's largest favela complex. Stated preferences emphasize pay and tangible job attributes rather than meaning or purpose. Stated complaints center on management, customers, and inflexible schedules. Workers exhibit high willingness to pay for unemployment insurance, parental leave, and learning opportunities, but none for termination notice or shorter commutes. We find larger willingness to accept to forgo amenities than willingness to pay to obtain them, consistent with preference-based sorting or endowment effects.