Changes in the association between social housing tenure and child outcomes across cohorts: comparing the millennium and British cohort studies

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, social housing in the UK has increasingly become the preserve of the poorest in society. This paper is the first to investigate how the child outcome penalties associated with social housing tenure have changed over time across UK cohorts. I compare the differences in the cognitive, mental health, and physical health outcomes of children in social housing with children in non-social housing and evaluate whether these tenure differences have changed between the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS) and the 2000 Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). I find that in both cohorts, children in social housing exhibit worse outcomes across all three dimensions (cognitive, mental health, and physical health) than children in non-social housing. For cognitive and physical health outcomes, however, the tenure difference has narrowed between the two cohorts, while for mental health outcomes, the tenure difference has widened. These results suggest that children have experienced a relative worsening in their mental health outcomes across cohorts, but also a relative improvement in both their cognitive and physical health outcomes. The findings suggest that policies aimed at reducing tenure inequalities in child outcomes should focus on mental health development in the early years.

KEYWORDS:

• Social housing tenure
• child outcomes
• cohort studies
• mental health development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Bilal Nasim, Ph.D., is a quantitative social scientist with a background in economics. His main research area is the determinants of life chances and social mobility in the UK. Recent research focuses on the determinants of and returns to non-cognitive skills in childhood; impact of family income on childhood mental health; wealth and childhood development; variation in special educational needs over time and region; trends in looked after children and out-of-home care; and social housing and childhood development.