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An empirical examination of the relationship between housing systems and non-housing outcomes

Summary

Project Number: 20004
Research Theme: Social_Wellbeing
Project Leader: Mullins, Pat
Funding Year: 2000
Research Centre: Queensland

Research & Policy Bulletin

Issue 010: Housing, housing assistance and wellbeing

Does housing assistance make a significant contribution to well being? If so, what type of housing assistance is most useful? And what aspects of our lives are improved by housing and housing assistance?

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Description

This project examined the relationship between housing systems—defined in terms of tenure (owner occupation, purchasing dwelling, private rental, and public rental)—and nine non-housing outcomes. These nine are crime, health status, labour force participation, community/community cohesion, poverty, education, perceived well being (quality of life), anomie, and social exclusion/inclusion. In particular, this project aimed to see whether there is a causal relationship between the housing system and these non-shelter outcomes. Are there specific housing related factors that interact unambiguously with these nine, and in a causal way? Particular attention will be given to differences between low income/vulnerable households in the private rental sector and those households renting public housing, and this will be done in terms of whether the receipt of government assistance by either group influences their non-shelter outcomes.

In this way, the role government assistance plays in reducing the severity of social problems should be suggested. The research focused on two areas, the second forming the core component. First we examined research and policy literature on housing systems and their relationships with the nine non-shelter outcomes cited.

The geographical focus of the research was the South East Queensland Urban Region (SEQ) (the Brisbane Mega Metropolitan Area) and the sample size was 1347 households. There are both individual (respondent) and household data. In addition to seeing whether housing systems influence these nine outcomes, we will also examine an alternative approach to the data. This is the extent to which the nine affect housing systems. For example, are public housing areas places of high crime because they house significant numbers of people who have criminal convictions, or do conditions within these areas promote criminal behaviour? In this way, then, the data allowed us to explore the extent to which housing itself effects the conditions giving rise to the social phenomena under examination or, conversely, whether the housing system is a consequence of these phenomena.

The research questions posed were explored using two key statistical techniques: analysis of variance and ordinary least squares analysis. In the analysis we  used standard measures of poverty, education, health status, anomie, perceived and objective well being (quality of life), and community cohesion. We also attempted to relate the measure of community/community cohesion to measures of community that were derived from aggregate data using a cluster analysis and a factorial ecology. For purposes of policy, profiles were provided from the research on: non shelter impacts affected by different modes of housing provision/consumption position the shelter and non shelter aspects that can interact to change well being (and in terms of locality) causal connections between housing and the nine outcomes.

More Information

Research and Policy Bulletin: Issue 010: Housing, housing assistance and wellbeing
57 KB PDF Document

Final Report: No. 005: Examining the links between housing and nine key socio cultural factors
197 KB PDF Document

Positioning Paper: No. 004: The links between housing and nine key socio cultural factors
381 KB PDF Document