Housing insecurity, financial hardship and mental health

Timothy Ludlow, Jonas Fooken, Christiern Rose and Kam Ki Tang

Economics & Human Biology, 2025, vol. 57, issue C

Abstract: We examine the impact of housing insecurity on mental health. We use missed rental payments due to a shortage of money as a direct measure of housing insecurity and a difference-in-differences framework that allows us to differentiate the effect of housing insecurity from the effect of experiencing financial hardship more generally. We find that housing insecurity causes a decline in mental health. Further analysis reveals two important dimensions of heterogeneity: the duration of prior financial hardship and the intensity of housing insecurity. Renters in prolonged financial hardship and those who experience high levels of housing insecurity (defined as missing a rental payment and having a high rent to income ratio), experience the largest negative impacts on their mental health.

Keywords: Housing insecurity; Rental stress; Mental health; Social determinants of health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:57:y:2025:i:c:s1570677x25000085

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2025.101475

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