Between liminality and a new life in Australia: What is the effect of precarious housing on the mental health of humanitarian migrants?

Abstract

Humanitarian migrants face a range of challenges during the resettlement process. Foremost among these is finding affordable, secure and suitable housing. Applying a liminality lens, we use two longitudinal surveys, one specific to humanitarian migrants (Building a New Life in Australia [BNLA]) and one representative of the Australian population (Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia [HILDA]), to examine the effect of precarious housing on humanitarian migrants' mental health; and compare this to the greater Australian population using fixed effects regression models. Such an approach controls for participants' previous experiences and isolates, as much as possible, the causal effect of precarious housing on mental health.Modelling of 21,462 HILDA and 2399 BLNA respondents over five years revealed a negative mental health effect attributed to unaffordable and unsuitable housing for both humanitarian migrants and the Australian population, with humanitarian migrants at greater risk of poor mental health due to unsuitable housing. Humanitarian migrants were 60 % more likely to suffer from worse mental health when they experience unaffordable housing compared to their counterparts in affordable housing, with a 2.4-fold increased risk those in unsuitable housing. Such findings suggest housing precarity can extend the process of liminality for humanitarian migrants, and future policies should facilitate greater access to affordable housing.