Abstract:
While empirical studies have observed that homeownership is associated with improved mental health conditions, research indicates that this relationship might vary by race. Moreover, such a White-Black disparity in the impacts of homeownership on mental health could be complexed by poverty status, as maintaining one\'s homeownership could be a financial burden for people living in poverty status, defined by the US official poverty threshold. We add to the existing literature by analyzing the impacts of homeownership on psychological distress, simultaneously disaggregating by race and poverty status using survey data from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics from the 2017 and 2019 waves (N = 7059). Propensity score weighting and doubly robust estimation are applied to estimate causal inference for the impact of 2017 homeownership on 2019 psychological distress using negative binomial models. First, we found the impacts of homeownership on reducing psychological distress are significant for White Americans, not for Black Americans. Second, we found such a White-Black disparity is only observable for populations not living in poverty. On the other hand, for populations living in poverty, homeownership no longer lowers psychological distress for either race. Findings suggest that financial support and mental health support are needy to address inequality in the impacts of homeownership on mental health, which could simultaneously vary by poverty status and race. Implications are discussed.
摘要:
虽然实证研究观察到房屋所有权与精神健康状况的改善有关,研究表明,这种关系可能因种族而异。此外,在房屋所有权对心理健康的影响上,这种白黑差异可能会受到贫困状况的影响,因为保持自己的住房所有权可能是生活在贫困状态的人们的经济负担,由美国官方贫困门槛定义。我们通过分析房屋所有权对心理困扰的影响来补充现有文献,使用来自2017年和2019年浪潮的收入动态小组研究的调查数据,同时按种族和贫困状况分类(N=7059)。使用负二项模型,应用倾向得分加权和双重稳健估计来估计2017年房屋所有权对2019年心理困扰的影响的因果推断。首先,我们发现房屋所有权对减少心理困扰的影响对白人美国人来说是显著的,不是美国黑人。第二,我们发现,这种白黑差距只有在不生活在贫困中的人群中才能观察到。另一方面,对于生活在贫困中的人们来说,拥有房屋不再降低任何种族的心理困扰。研究结果表明,财政支持和心理健康支持需要解决住房所有权对心理健康影响的不平等问题,这可能同时因贫困状况和种族而异。讨论了含义。