Housing Costs Research Articles

An Integrative Spatial Framework and Co‐Design Toolkit to Measure and Visualize Multidimensional Poverty in the United States

ABSTRACTNearly 38 million people in the United States live in poverty. The Census Bureau's official poverty measure significantly undercounts poverty as it solely focuses on a minimum food diet and fails to account for the geographic variations in living costs. This article offers a geographically adaptive framework for combining multidimensional poverty indicators and modeling the locally adjusted costs of food, housing and utilities, healthcare, childcare, transportation, taxes, and other necessities to assess poverty and geographic inequality across neighborhoods and population sub‐groups. We employ a co‐design approach for developing the poverty assessment framework and evaluating the results with end users to ensure that communities can build trust and a sense of ownership that enhances the usability and actionability of poverty data. The datasets, quantitative frameworks, and algorithms were woven into an interactive geospatial dashboard toolkit for seamlessly integrating, cleaning, standardizing, and visually communicating the poverty metrics with a broad range of users. Results from this paper advance spatial data analyses and reproducible spatial model‐building methods that enable researchers to gain higher resolution, context‐specific, and geographically dynamic knowledge of poverty and inequalities.

Housing tenure and subjective poverty among young European adults: The role of rent regulation

Poverty has spread in Europe over the last decade, becoming a central issue in the political debate. Alongside objective measures of poverty, assessing the level of subjective poverty, especially among young adults, is important because of the consequences that feeling poor can have on household fertility decisions, consumption, and investment in human capital. Objective and subjective poverty do not fully overlap, and the sense of insecurity can lead to a feeling of not being able to make ends meet. For renters and mortgaged homeowners, housing costs can be a significant burden, and the risk of not being able to pay the rent or mortgage installments can affect young adults’ wellbeing and feeling of poverty. Our study investigates the relationship between tenure status and subjective poverty for households of young independent adults aged 18-34 living in 24 European countries, assessing whether rent regulation plays a role in influencing this association. Using micro-level data from EU-SILC and macro-level data on rent regulation, we estimate multilevel linear regression models with a three-level random effects specification: young household respondents (Level 1) are nested in country waves (Level 2), which in turn are nested within countries (Level 3). Controlling for income level and housing costs, we found that being a tenant or a mortgaged homeowner increases the probability of economic hardship compared to being an outright homeowner. By offering affordable options, rental housing policies can also reduce subjective poverty among young people who are not direct beneficiaries of these policies.

Inequality of earnings and housing costs – developments between and within regions

Household well-being is strongly influenced by changes in income – but real income is strongly determined by housing costs. The evolution of inequalities in both variables largely determines the development of living conditions between households. In this paper, we look at inequality trends between 2008 and 2017 from a regional perspective – between and within regions. While neighborhood earnings inequality has generally declined slightly, it is rising within Germany’s largest cities. On the other hand, inequality in rents has less declined within those cities than in the rest of Germany, corresponding to price increases in poorer neighborhoods, too. Households in these poor neighborhoods thus suffer from a below-average earnings development, while it seems that the main costs caused by new rentals increase similar to the rest of the city.

Spectres of gentrification: Towards a hauntological framework for exploring the impacts of gentrification

Theoretical foundations that frame gentrification often focus heavily on the material and political economy perspective. While this perspective addresses the material impacts of gentrification – cost of housing, changes in demographics, development of new housing structures – it does not address the way gentrification is experienced by long-time residents of gentrifying communities. One of the often-overlooked dimensions of gentrification is how residents’ perceptions of their continued belonging in the neighbourhood can lead to experiences of alienation. While underexplored in gentrification research, hauntology offers a theoretical framework that allows for a ‘more than material’ understanding of the relationship between personhood, place and property in neighbourhoods undergoing gentrification. Using a case study of a gentrifying neighbourhood in New England, this article describes the utility of the hauntological framework in understanding ‘more than material’ impacts of gentrification. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, alongside photovoice and walking interviews with long-time residents, this article describes how participants and residents are often haunted by the sense of individual and communal loss of their community’s future place in the neighbourhood. These ‘lost futures’ are often represented by the material changes, such as new buildings, and demographic changes, witnessed through the displacement of their neighbours, occurring in their neighbourhood. This article argues that by engaging with the framework of hauntology, researchers can better interrogate how residents in gentrifying neighbourhoods experience loss through these demographic and material changes.

Impacts of Housing Costs on Health and Satisfaction With Life Circumstances: Evidence From Australia.

This paper examines the causal impacts of rising housing costs on individual health and satisfaction with life circumstances, using a fixed-effects instrumental variable approach and individual-level panel data from Australia. Relying on the historical patterns of immigrant settlement, we construct an instrumental variable that exploits exogenous variation in housing costs driven by foreign investments that flow differentially into localities. We find that rising housing costs-as measured by composite housing costs faced by homeowners and renters living in an area-have a significant positive impact on individuals' self-assessed physical health and a significant negative impact on satisfaction ratings, but no significant impact on self-assessed emotional health. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that the positive effects on physical health are mainly concentrated among homeowners, the well-educated, and older individuals.

The Impact of Childcare And Housing Cost Burden on the Financial Well-Being of Households with Children : Focusing on Comparison by Life Cycle

The Impact of Childcare And Housing Cost Burden on the Financial Well-Being of Households with Children : Focusing on Comparison by Life Cycle

Assessment of Factors Associated with Household Expenditure in Gajuri Rural Municipality, Dhading, Nepal

Background: Household expenditure is the total amount of money spent by a household for food, cloth, shelter, education, health, transportation, sanitation, entertainment, and so on. The objective of this study is to identify the significant factors affecting household expenditure in the rural area from the collected 897 primary data from the Gajuri Municipality in December, 2022. Methods: Stratified random sampling method was used for the data collection and the secondary data was used from the Sahabhagitamulak Gajuri Bikas Guru Yojana, 2074. Ordinary least square regression method was used to analyze the data. Results: The result of this study shows that the size of the household (β = 0.023, p < 0.001), gender of the household head (β = 0.059, p=0.003), income of the household (β = 0.093, p < 0.001), access to internet in the house (β = -0.191, p < 0.001), and the access to the television in the house (β = -0.090, p < 0.001) were found important in determining household expenditure in this municipality. Conclusion: From this study, it can be found that the size of the household, gender of the household head, income of the household, access to the internet in the house and access to the television in the house are strongly associated with household expenditure instead of literacy status of household head, remittance receiving status of household, and age of the household head due to the contemporary development and advancement in the society. This study could help policy makers assess factors determining household expenditure and develop plans for Gajuri Rural Municipality. Novelty: In underdeveloped countries, it is difficult to determine exactly what housing costs are especially in rural areas. This is because uneducated landowners do not account for the consumption of agricultural produce and the expenditure incurred in it.

Cognitive Health Costs of Poor Housing for Women: Exploring Executive Function and Housing Stress in Urban Slums in India.

An increasing body of literature has investigated the implications of housing quality on health, confirming the negative consequences of poor housing quality on physical and mental health. Despite this increased focus on the salutogenic impacts of housing, the relationship between housing quality and cognitive health remains understudied. This study examined how the housing quality in urban informal settlements, where living conditions are often substandard, affects women's cognitive functioning, with a specific focus on executive function (EF) skills. EF is a decision-making system that enables us to make decisions using working memory and attentional control. This study addressed two key questions: (1) Is housing quality associated with EF skills? (2) Does perceived housing stress experienced by women mediate the housing-EF relationship? A standardized observer-based tool assessed housing quality, psychometric instruments measured EF skills, and a 12-item questionnaire evaluated perceived housing stress. Results indicated that better housing quality is positively associated with higher EF skills, with housing stress acting as a mediating factor in this relationship. These findings have important implications for both health and housing policies. Investments in improving housing conditions can yield cognitive health benefits for women, and addressing stress-inducing housing factors could further enhance cognitive outcomes.

Economic Impacts of Technology-Facilitated Abuse Among U.S. Young Adults.

Technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) can result in long-term financial and mental health impacts on survivors. However, little research has been published to date about the types of costs and the economic burden that survivors of TFA experience. This study presents results from a U.S. nationally representative sample of young adults aged 18 to 35 on financial cost experienced as a result of TFA, including findings of healthcare utilization and associated healthcare costs. Respondents who reported experiencing one or more forms of TFA were asked about the lifetime health and economic impacts of the TFA. Nearly one in five TFA survivors (18.2%) reported experiencing an economic cost from the TFA, with a median total cost of $900 USD. There was a significant difference in the likelihood of reporting a financial cost among TFA survivors by race/ethnicity, TFA exposure, average use of online sites/apps, and the number of sites/apps used. Financial fraud, technology, and housing costs were the most common types of cost reported. More than 1 in 10 survivors (11.3%) reported receiving mental health counseling related to the TFA, with a per-person total cost estimate of $6,228 USD from mental health counseling. A similar proportion (11.6%) of TFA survivors reported taking one or more prescribed medications to manage the impact of the TFA, with an average duration of 37.4 weeks of use. Older age, identifying as non-Hispanic Black/African American or Hispanic/Latino/a/x, identifying as a sexual or gender minority, and greater TFA severity were associated with higher financial cost reported. Findings present novel information on the economic and psychological harms associated with TFA and indicate the importance of access to mental health and financial support services for TFA survivors.

PECULIARITIES OF CROSS-COUNTRY ASSESSMENT OF QUALITY OF LIFE IN FOREIGN RATINGS

Today, the quality of life is an important characteristic of the performance of both the national economy focused on people and the federal and local authorities. At the same time, there are a large number of fundamentally different quality of life ratings in the world, taking into account different components, indicators and even approaches to their measurement. The purpose of the article is to present the results of the author’s analysis of popular world approaches to assessing the quality of life, on the basis of which to give their comparative characteristics. The article uses data from scientific, analytical and statistical agencies, consulting companies, presented in the public domain. As a result of the study, it was found that four components of the quality of life are present in all analyzed ratings, these are health, environment, income and wealth, as well as safety. Also often found in the methods are components of subjective assessment of life satisfaction, education, quality of housing conditions, social connections and cost of living. Work and transport accessibility are rarely used in the methods of assessing the quality of life. The results of the study can be used to select a method for assessing the quality of life at the international level based on the objectives of a particular study, as well as to develop original approaches to assessing the quality of life.

Social Determinants of Sepsis Mortality in the United States: A Retrospective, Epidemiologic Analysis.

To determine whether neighborhood-level social determinants of health (SDoH) influence mortality following sepsis in the United States. Retrospective analysis of data from 4.4 million hospitalized patients diagnosed with sepsis, identified using International Classification of Diseases-10 codes, across the United States. De-identified, aggregated data were sourced from the TriNetX Diamond Network. SDoH variables included income, housing cost burden, broadband access, park proximity, racial/ethnic diversity, and the Area Deprivation Index (ADI). The primary outcome was mortality, assessed using univariate and multivariate binomial generalized linear models. Predictors with high multicollinearity (Variance Inflation Factor > 5) were excluded to enhance model stability. Lower median income, higher ADI scores, limited park access, and lack of broadband connectivity were strongly associated with increased sepsis mortality. Unexpectedly, greater racial/ethnic diversity was negatively associated with mortality, possibly reflecting regional disparities in healthcare access and socioeconomic conditions. Multivariate analyses revealed that the inclusion of SDoH variables attenuated some effects observed in univariate models, highlighting their complex interplay. Random Forest analysis identified park access as the most important predictor of sepsis mortality, emphasizing its role as a potential proxy for broader neighborhood resources. Neighborhood-level SDoH are critical for risk stratification in sepsis prognostic models and should be systematically integrated into predictive frameworks. These findings highlight the need for targeted public health interventions to address social vulnerabilities, enhance access to green spaces, and reduce disparities in sepsis outcomes across diverse populations.

Associations Between Food Security, Housing and Health in South Australia.

Food security is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve for many households. Research has shown that food insecurity is associated with socioeconomic disadvantage, including housing pressures, and may contribute to poor health outcomes. There is lack of data on these associations in the South Australian setting, where food security is not consistently monitored. A population health survey was administered to South Australian participants in April 2023. Descriptive analysis was conducted on data regarding food insecurity, housing circumstances, chronic and mental health conditions. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to assess associations between food security and health outcomes. From a sample of 3002 participants, 16.4% reported low and very low food security. These participants tended to be renting, facing housing cost pressures, and lacking infrastructure to store and prepare food. When controlling for confounders, food insecurity was found to be associated with increased likelihood of having at least one chronic condition, mental health condition, and decreased overall wellbeing. Food security is itself a determinant of health. Regular monitoring of theprevalence of household food insecurity and addressing the structural factors influencing food affordability and availability are required. Further research on its links to health outcomes is warranted. SO WHAT?: Evidence-based action to address food insecurity will become more pressing as the crises of cost-of-living, housing, health system pressures and environmental disasters converge.

Housing cost overburden and population health: cross-country evidence from Europe before the pandemic

ABSTRACT The recent surge in housing prices across Europe has placed a considerable financial burden on families, with potential effects across multiple dimensions, including health. This study investigates the relationship between housing cost overburden and self-assessed health status and premature mortality across 26 European Union countries between 2011 and 2019, before the pandemic. We estimate a general health production function using a generalised least squares regression with both robust and Driscoll – Kraay standard errors. We conduct a quantile regression via the method of moments to provide additional insights into the relationship between health and housing cost overburden along the distribution of health variables. Controlling for socio-demographic and economic country profiles, our results confirm that housing cost overburden is associated with worse health status. The association with premature mortality appears to be stronger in countries with lower rates of premature mortality or with a lower share of people reporting lower health status, suggesting that housing cost overburden is an important health determinant. In these well-performing countries, even modest improvements in addressing the housing cost burden may contribute to improve health outcomes.

VAT Treatment of Consumer-to-Consumer Supplies of Residential Premises in China

In China, the sale of larger and more expensive homes in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Shenzhen which had been owned by individuals for two years or more was previously subject to VAT. From 1 December 2024, this is no longer the case. In this article, the author explains that this measure is expected to reduce the cost of housing and stimulate the housing market.

Rental Market Risk and Radical Right Support

A growing literature examines how economic threat affects support for anti-establishment parties. While most existing work focuses on transforming labor markets as a source of anxiety, we advance the literature by studying changes in urban development and rent price appreciation. Our analysis examines the case of Germany, the country with the highest share of rental housing in the European Union. Combining individual-level geo-referenced panel data with a longitudinal data set on the cost of rental housing at the postcode level, we demonstrate that rising local rent levels increase support for radical right parties among long-term residents with lower household incomes, in particular in urban areas. Our results suggest that urban development, not unlike labor market transformation, represents an important and so far neglected source of economic insecurity and social concern with important political implications.

The Homelessness Income Cut Off

Most people with income below Canada’s official poverty line avoid homelessness. They do so by making extraordinary efforts to minimize out-of-pocket expenses and so conserve income for rent. These efforts involve moving to less expensive accommodations, living in more crowded housing, forgoing non-necessities, and relying on charities to reduce expenditures on food, clothing, and other necessities. These efforts to minimize expenditures mean that the poverty line is a poor measure of the income required to avoid homelessness. The absence of such a measure means we are unable to determine whether income supports are adequate for keeping people from experiencing homelessness. The Homeless Income Cut Off (HICO) measures the amount of income families and individuals need to minimize their risk of becoming homeless after they have exhausted their own efforts to remain housed. This paper explains how the HICO is calculated and how it can be used to gauge the adequacy of income support policies intended to keep Canadians from becoming homeless. Since income supports and the costs of necessities vary across Canada and over time, this paper presents calculations of the HICO for seven cities (Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax) and for eight years (2015–22). The HICO does not describe what people with low-income must do before they receive income assistance. Rather, it shows how bad the affordability crisis is for them — a crisis caused by rising housing costs and food prices, lagging incomes and holes in the social safety net. The calculations show the extent to which Canadians with low income must rely on food banks and other charities to hang on to their housing, a reliance made necessary by income supports that are frequently inadequate for this purpose. The HICO provides policymakers with a gauge against which they can evaluate the adequacy on income supports for preventing homelessness. Income supports need, at the very least, to be sufficient to enable families and individuals to maintain their housing after they have exhausted their own efforts to do so.

Retaining Permanent and Temporary Immigrants in Rural Australia: Place‐Based and Individual Determinants

ABSTRACTIn many low‐fertility countries, immigration is increasingly seen a solution to the twin problem of rural depopulation and skill shortages. In Australia, this takes the form of regional visa schemes that require both skilled and humanitarian migrants to reside initially in nonmetropolitan regions for a minimum of 2 years. In the absence of nationally representative longitudinal data, the efficacy of this policy is yet to be assessed. Applying survival analysis to novel administrative data from the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA), this paper establishes the level and determinants of rural retention among immigrants who arrived between January and August 2011 on eight different visas and compares these to the Australian population to the end of 2019. Our results suggest that regional visa schemes are effective in attracting permanent skilled migrants but not in retaining them, even when controlling for socio‐demographic characteristics. Migrants on regional skilled visa and temporary skilled workers display a 40% 9‐year retention rate compared with over 50% for Australian and New Zealand citizens, permanent family, skilled and humanitarian migrants and 30% for students. In contrast, the low retention of temporary skilled migrants is largely the product of their younger and more educated profile. We identify a negative selection process by which immigrants with less‐education, lower incomes, or less English proficiency—including humanitarian migrants—are more likely to stay in nonmetropolitan regions. This outcome signifies a process of socio‐spatial polarisation and a segmented labour market. At a regional‐level, we find that regions with a diverse occupational mix and co‐ethnic networks are more likely to retain immigrants whereas those with high housing costs are significantly less likely. These results provide policy levers to boost rural retention.

An Overview of Anesthetic Procedures for Ferret (Mustela putorius furo) Preclinical Brain MRI: A Call for Standardization

AbstractNeuroscience research has been increasingly active during the last 2 decades, largely driven by the high prevalence and increasing burden of neurologic disorders. While rodents are essential models for biomedical research of neurologic disorders, they lack similar brain anatomy and protein expression profiles to humans, thus limiting their translational value as models of traumatic brain injury, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. The use of ferrets as a model species in neuroscience has been increasing due to their neuroanatomical similarities with humans, including a gyrencephalic brain and larger white matter-to-gray matter ratio. Compared with nonhuman primates, sheep, and swine, ferrets also have the advantages of reduced size, lower housing costs, and lower phylogenetic order. These, among other advantages, make ferrets a promising species to bridge research gaps and complement traditional rodent studies. Although modern neuroscience research in ferrets relies heavily on advanced imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), most of the preclinical MRI installations are not designed or optimized for use with ferrets. In this paper we discuss the intricacies and limitations that need to be considered when performing ferret MRI procedures. Reviews of ferret biologic peculiarities, anesthetic protocols, management of complications, and the impact of these factors on MRI outcomes are presented. Standardizing anesthesia protocols for the conduct of MRI in ferrets will aid in better physiologic monitoring as well as imaging outcomes that ultimately benefit the science being conducted.

Affordability and accessibility of condominium housing in urban Ethiopia using a combined transportation and housing cost (CHT) index model: implication for sustainable urban infrastructure, policy and development

ABSTRACT Condominium housing is a critical housing option, but its affordability measures continue to be debatable. This study examined the mutual effect of housing & transportation monthly expenses on housing location affordability and accessibility, considering three comparable locations- inner-city, intermediate, and outer-city condominium locations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 1152 condominium residents were surveyed to assess urban housing location affordability using the combined H+T affordability index, GIS, one-way ANOVA, and Logit model. Housing affordability is diversified in the city, distance to CBD & transport are significant factor. Outer-city and intermediate neighbourhoods are unaffordable & inaccessible, with 55% and 48% index, respectively. Outer-city residents and lower-incomers face higher financial burdens. Nevertheless, inner-city is affordable & accessible, and residents enjoy better proximity to services. It contributes insights to enhance literature and debates on the model. H+T index provides up-to-date understanding and informs policymaking for innovative, smart, and sustainable, location-sensitive, integrated, and pro-poor policies.

Housing Cost Prediction from the Perspective of Grey Fractional-Order Similar Information Priority

In order to predict the cost of construction projects more accurately for cross-sectional data such as housing costs, a fractional heterogeneous grey model based on the principle of similar information priority was proposed in this paper. The advantages of the proposed model are proved by the stability analysis of the solution. The similarity between predicted samples and existing samples was analyzed, and the priority order of cross-sectional information was distinguished according to the similarity of the index information. The factors affecting the cost of construction projects were sorted by similarity, and the samples with high similarity to predicted samples were ranked first. Since projects with similar influence factors tend to produce similar project costs, such a ranking method can effectively utilize the information of similar projects and help improve prediction accuracy. In addition, compared with the prediction results of other models, it is verified that the method of prioritizing similar information can obtain more accurate prediction results.