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Housing affordability and mental health: Do definitions matter?

Kraindler, Josh LU (2018) NEKP01 20181
Department of Economics
Abstract
Housing affordability is an increasingly discussed political and economic issue. Recent research finds a negative relationship between housing affordability and mental health. Much of the prior research uses a ratio measurement for housing affordability. Using alternative measures of housing affordability, I re-examine the relationship between housing affordability and mental health. A fixed effects approach using a residual income measure of housing affordability does not find a significant relationship between housing affordability and mental health. Interestingly, the results are significant for females, when the regressions are run separately for males and females, but not for males. A large and significant relationship with mental... (More)
Housing affordability is an increasingly discussed political and economic issue. Recent research finds a negative relationship between housing affordability and mental health. Much of the prior research uses a ratio measurement for housing affordability. Using alternative measures of housing affordability, I re-examine the relationship between housing affordability and mental health. A fixed effects approach using a residual income measure of housing affordability does not find a significant relationship between housing affordability and mental health. Interestingly, the results are significant for females, when the regressions are run separately for males and females, but not for males. A large and significant relationship with mental health is found from questions on household’s ability to pay either housing costs or household bills. The results suggest that conventional measures of housing affordability may not identify a large portion of the population who have troubles paying for either housing costs or major bills and therefore underestimate the prevalence of mental health issues related to housing affordability. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Kraindler, Josh LU
supervisor
organization
course
NEKP01 20181
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Housing affordability mental health residual income
language
English
id
8948221
date added to LUP
2018-07-03 13:36:22
date last changed
2018-07-03 13:36:22
@misc{8948221,
  abstract     = {{Housing affordability is an increasingly discussed political and economic issue. Recent research finds a negative relationship between housing affordability and mental health. Much of the prior research uses a ratio measurement for housing affordability. Using alternative measures of housing affordability, I re-examine the relationship between housing affordability and mental health. A fixed effects approach using a residual income measure of housing affordability does not find a significant relationship between housing affordability and mental health. Interestingly, the results are significant for females, when the regressions are run separately for males and females, but not for males. A large and significant relationship with mental health is found from questions on household’s ability to pay either housing costs or household bills. The results suggest that conventional measures of housing affordability may not identify a large portion of the population who have troubles paying for either housing costs or major bills and therefore underestimate the prevalence of mental health issues related to housing affordability.}},
  author       = {{Kraindler, Josh}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Housing affordability and mental health: Do definitions matter?}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}