In Need of a Roof: Pandemic and Housing Vulnerability

Kusum Mundra () and Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere

Working Papers Rutgers University, Newark from Department of Economics, Rutgers University, Newark

Abstract: Housing is a basic need and is intricately connected to a household’s health and wellness. The current pandemic has exposed the housing vulnerability for certain subgroups of the population and further jeopardized these household’s health and stability. Using the Household Pulse Survey (HPS) launched by the US Census Bureau in April 2020, we examine the correlates of housing vulnerability during the pandemic. We explore both subjective and objective measures of vulnerability. We find that households who said they tend to worry more frequently are significantly more housing vulnerable and this is more acute for renters. We explore heterogeneity in the evolution of housing vulnerability along demographic characteristics such as ethnicity and housing type (renter vs owner) during the pandemic. Our main results suggest that an individual’s perception on their housing vulnerability in the immediate future is on average higher than the objective evaluation of their current vulnerability. In addition, not being employed, lower levels of education and household size all increase home vulnerability. We also find significant heterogeneity across race in the evolution of vulnerability during the pandemic (2000-2022) with a “chilling effect” on Asians.

Keywords: Renter; Homeowner; Housing vulnerability; Pandemic; Ethnicity; Asian (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J10 R2 R3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2023-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
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Related works:
Journal Article: In Need of a Roof: Pandemic and Housing Vulnerability (2024)
Working Paper: In Need of a Roof: Pandemic and Housing Vulnerability (2022)
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