Exposure to housing hardship before the age of 5 may influence “housing insecurity” in early adulthood, according to Rutgers-led research. “There’s something unique about early childhood,” said Katherine Marçal, an assistant professor with the School of Social Work and lead author of the study published in the journal Youth & Society. “When kids live with socio-economic adversity at a young age, those effects can persist for a very long time.”
While there is no standard definition of housing insecurity, Marçal said it includes the inability to maintain safe, secure and affordable housing. Researchers have long suspected that exposure to housing insecurity in childhood increases the odds of similar challenges as adults, though little research has been conducted to corroborate the assumption, she said.
To close this research gap, Marçal and Nicholas Barr, an associate professor of social work at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, examined 1,576 responses from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which followed families with children born between 1998 and 2000 in 20 large cities in the United States.
Caregivers were asked at five separate intervals during the first 15 years of the study whether they had experienced any one of the following in the past 12 months: missed a rent or mortgage payment; moved in with others; been evicted for nonpayment; or spent at least one night living on the streets, in a vehicle or in a shelter. To read the full story.