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Housing affordability and mental health: Does the relationship differ for renters and home purchasers?

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  • Mason, Kate E.
  • Baker, Emma
  • Blakely, Tony
  • Bentley, Rebecca J.

Abstract

There is increasing evidence of a direct association between unaffordable housing and poor mental health, over and above the effects of general financial hardship. Type of housing tenure may be an important factor in determining how individuals experience and respond to housing affordability problems. This study investigated whether a relationship exists between unaffordable housing and mental health that differs for home purchasers and private renters among low-income households. Data from 2001 to 2010 of the longitudinal Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey were analysed using fixed-effects linear regression to examine change in the SF-36 Mental Component Summary (MCS) score of individuals aged 25–64 years, associated with changes in housing affordability, testing for an interaction with housing tenure type. After adjusting for age, survey year and household income, among individuals living in households in the lower 40% of the national income distribution, private renters in unaffordable housing experienced somewhat poorer in mental health than when their housing was affordable (difference in MCS = −1.18 or about 20% of one S.D. of the MCS score; 95% CI: -1.95,-0.41; p = 0.003) while home purchasers experienced no difference on average. The statistical evidence for housing tenure modifying the association between unaffordable housing and mental health was moderate (p = 0.058). When alternatives to 40% were considered as income cut-offs for inclusion in the sample, evidence of a difference between renters and home purchasers was stronger amongst households in the lowest 50% of the income distribution (p = 0.020), and between the 30th and 50th percentile (p = 0.045), with renters consistently experiencing a decline in mental health while mean MCS scores of home purchasers did not change. In this study, private renters appeared to be more vulnerable than home purchasers to mental health effects of unaffordable housing. Such a modified effect suggests that tenure-differentiated policy responses to poor housing affordability may be appropriate.

Suggested Citation

  • Mason, Kate E. & Baker, Emma & Blakely, Tony & Bentley, Rebecca J., 2013. "Housing affordability and mental health: Does the relationship differ for renters and home purchasers?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 91-97.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:94:y:2013:i:c:p:91-97
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.06.023
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Alley, D.E. & Lloyd, J. & Pagán, J.A. & Pollack, C.E. & Shardell, M. & Cannuscio, C., 2011. "Mortgage delinquency and changes in access to health resources and depressive symptoms in a nationally representative cohort of Americans older than 50 years," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 101(12), pages 2293-2298.
    2. Emma Baker & Rebecca Bentley & Kate Mason, 2013. "The Mental Health Effects of Housing Tenure: Causal or Compositional?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(2), pages 426-442, February.
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    2. Rshood M. Al-Khraif & Abdullah N. Al-Mutairi & Khaled O. Alradihan & Asharaf Abdul Salam, 2018. "Retiree home ownership in Saudi Arabia: the role of geographic, demographic, social and economic variables," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 169-185, June.
    3. Susan J Smith & Melek Cigdem & Rachel Ong & Gavin Wood, 2017. "Wellbeing at the edges of ownership," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(5), pages 1080-1098, May.
    4. Timothy Ludlow & Jonas Fooken & Christiern Rose & Kam Tang, 2022. "Incorporating Financial Hardship in Measuring the Mental Health Impact of Housing Stress," Papers 2205.01255, arXiv.org.
    5. Amy Clair, 2019. "Housing: an Under-Explored Influence on Children’s Well-Being and Becoming," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 12(2), pages 609-626, April.
    6. Anne Marie Kavanagh & Zoe Aitken & Lauren Krnjacki & Anthony Daniel LaMontagne & Rebecca Bentley & Allison Milner, 2015. "Mental Health Following Acquisition of Disability in Adulthood—The Impact of Wealth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(10), pages 1-13, October.
    7. Atalay, Kadir & Edwards, Rebecca & Liu, Betty Y.J., 2017. "Effects of house prices on health: New evidence from Australia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 36-48.
    8. Peter Butterworth & Carmel Poyser & Aino Suomi, 2021. "Mental Health," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 54(4), pages 530-541, December.
    9. Min Zhou & Wei Guo, 2023. "Self-rated Health and Objective Health Status Among Rural-to-Urban Migrants in China: A Healthy Housing Perspective," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(1), pages 1-24, February.
    10. Bentley, Rebecca & Baker, Emma & Aitken, Zoe, 2019. "The ‘double precarity’ of employment insecurity and unaffordable housing and its impact on mental health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 225(C), pages 9-16.
    11. Downing, Janelle, 2016. "The health effects of the foreclosure crisis and unaffordable housing: A systematic review and explanation of evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 88-96.
    12. Denary, Whitney & Fenelon, Andrew & Schlesinger, Penelope & Purtle, Jonathan & Blankenship, Kim M. & Keene, Danya E., 2021. "Does rental assistance improve mental health? Insights from a longitudinal cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    13. Gabriel, Stuart & Painter, Gary, 2020. "Why affordability matters," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).

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