Housing Affordability and Parental Well-Being: Do Different Measures of Affordability Matter?

Purpose:Despite the well-documented problem of high housing costs experienced disproportionately by households at the bottom of the income distribution, there is little evidence to suggest that housing unaffordability is associated with poor outcomes for parents or children. Decisions that families make about where to live and what costs they are willing to assume are complex, and the few existing studies on housing affordability find inconsistent associations between affordability and parental well-being or child outcomes. This work is further complicated by the fact that affordability can be measured in multiple ways. The current study adds to existing literature on housing affordability by examining whether three common measures of affordability are associated with maternal stress and depressive symptoms among a sample of economically disadvantaged families.   

Methods:Data are drawn from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a birth cohort study of 4,898 children born in 20 U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000. The sample includes all families whose children lived with their mother at least part-time for the entire observation period, from birth through age 9 (N=4,741). Housing affordability is measured using 1) the family’s housing cost burden as a ratio of housing costs to total household income, 2) fair market rent within the family’s city as determined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and 3) an affordable housing mismatch ratio as the number of units available to rent for households with income below city-wide median income to the number of households with incomes below median income. Maternal depressive symptoms are measured using the short form of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview that is based on criteria for major depression. Maternal stress reports are drawn from seven items reflecting material hardship, such as food insecurity and utility shut-off, and four items related to parenting-related stress. Demographic, family, child, and neighborhood characteristics are used as covariates. Multivariate regression is used to examine associations between measures of affordability and maternal stress and depressive symptoms.

Results:Results indicate that the three measures of affordability are each associated with maternal well-being in that decreased affordability is associated with between .15-.25 standard deviation increases in stress and depressive symptoms. Associations are largest in magnitude and most consistent across the income distribution between affordable housing mismatch and parenting-related stress. Sensitivity tests show evidence of a non-linear association for all three affordability measures, and lack of affordability and maternal well-being are most strongly associated among families with household income below the federal poverty line.

Implications: These findings suggest that lack of affordable housing has the potential to interfere with healthy family functioning, as the increased stress that mothers experience as a result of housing-related poverty may manifest itself through harsh or neglectful parenting practices. Because housing problems related to unaffordability are consistently associated with abuse or neglect substantiation and out of home placement, results provide support for increased investment in housing subsidies for low-income families with high housing costs who may be at risk of involvement with Child Protective Services.