The Impact of Housing Insecurity on Child Maltreatment: A Causal Investigation Using Propensity Score Analysis

Background and Purpose: Children in families experiencing housing instability are at increased risk for being maltreated compared to their stably housed peers. Housing problems contribute to caregiver stress and family conflict that make abuse and neglect more likely. Housing instability has been linked to increased risk for child maltreatment in a number of studies using observational data and correlational design, but evidence of a causal relationship is lacking. The present study utilized two propensity score analysis methods—greedy matching and matching estimators—to test whether housing insecurity caused child maltreatment in a cohort of school-aged children.

Methods: Data came from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study, which followed nearly 5,000 children born between 1998 and 2000 in 20 large American cities. Participants were selected according to a stratified clustered sampling strategy that oversampled children born to unmarried parents. Mothers were interviewed in hospitals shortly after giving birth, and fathers were interviewed in hospitals or as soon as possible thereafter. Follow-up interviews occurred at one-, three-, five-, and nine-year intervals. Follow-up waves included child and teacher instruments. The present study utilized data from the mother interview at the latest follow-up, when children were approximately nine years old. The sample was limited to mothers who reported having primary custody of their children and with complete data on all study variables (N = 2,343). Analyses occurred in three phases. First, an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was conducted on the original sample. Second, propensity scores were calculated as the logit of the predicted probability of each case experiencing housing instability (the “treatment” condition); each unstably housed (“treatment”) case was matched to a stably housed (“control”) case based on propensity scores using a nearest-neighbor within-caliper greedy matching scheme. The original OLS model above was replicated on the newly matched sample. Third, matching estimators was used as a sensitivity analyses to check robustness of findings. Matching estimators applies the counterfactual framework to impute missing potential outcomes based on information from matched cases; as the only propensity score analysis method that does not rely on logistic regression to obtain propensity scores, matching estimators provides a useful approach to validate findings from other methods.

Results: Results supported a causal relationship between housing insecurity and maltreatment. Regression results on the unmatched sample indicated that housing instability was associated with an increase of 1.11 maltreatment behaviors; the same model conducted on the matched sample indicated that housing instability led to a 1.04 increase in maltreatment behaviors. Matching estimators yielded an increase of 1.15 maltreatment behaviors.

Conclusions and Implications: Identifying the causal link between housing insecurity and maltreatment has important implications for understanding why maltreatment occurs. Existing interventions often emphasize parent training, behavioral skills training, and anger management; however, findings of the present study suggest that financial hardship should be a greater focus. This knowledge can be leveraged to implement preventative interventions that reduce strain on vulnerable caregivers and the child welfare system, with improved child well-being and development.