The Long-Term Effects of Housing Insecurity on Food Insufficiency among Low-Income Mothers in the U.S.

• In Event: Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 6. Inequality in Housing and Neighborhoods

Abstract

As housing insecurity deepens across the United States, food insecurity deepens in tandem. While prior research demonstrates that these two phenomena are linked –– and are unequally distributed by race, gender, income, and the presence of children in the household –– the durability of this relationship over time has been subjected to limited formal testing. Using longitudinal data from Years 5, 9, and 15 of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), we construct a sample of low-income mothers (N = 2720). We test multiple matching and weighting methods and assess the effect of housing insecurity at Year 9 on food insufficiency at Year 15, net of a series of covariates measured at Year 5. After adjustment for pre-exposure housing insecurity, food insufficiency, and sociodemographic characteristics through both propensity score weighting and our logistic regression model (i.e., doubly robust estimation), the predicted probability of food insufficiency at Year 15 was 12.74% [95% CI: 10.4, 15.1] among low-income mothers experiencing housing insecurity at Year 9 and 6.98% [95% CI: 5.4, 8.6] among low-income mothers that were not experiencing housing insecurity at Year 9. This corresponds to a 5.76 [95% CI: 2.9, 8.6] percentage point difference in food insufficiency six years later, a relative increase of 82.4% among low-income mothers with prior experience of housing insecurity compared to those without prior experience. These findings suggest that policymakers seeking to reduce food insufficiency among low-income families should look to interventions that reduce housing insecurity.

Authors

• Matthew Gannon, Johns Hopkins University

• Kyle J Moon, Johns Hopkins University