Growing Up as Rents Rise: How Housing Affordability Impacts Children

Over the past several decades, housing costs have risen sharply, and as a result, an increasing number of families have become “housing cost burdened,” paying more than one third of their income toward rent and utilities. This integrative literature synthesis considers the known and potential impacts of families’ housing affordability problems on child development and schooling outcomes through a review of 64 studies published between 2000 and 2020. The synthesis proceeds in three sections: the first section examines research on the direct connection between affordability and child outcomes. The second section considers the empirical evidence on four pathways through which affordability problems are theorized to affect child outcomes: the residential mobility pathway (by causing residential mobility, school mobility, eviction, or homelessness), the living environment pathway (by reducing the quality of housing or living conditions), the neighborhood and school opportunity pathway (by restricting access to high-opportunity neighborhoods and schools), and the parental resources pathway (by reducing financial resources that could be invested in children and increasing parental stress). The third section of the synthesis considers affordability’s impact on children through an examination of the research literature on the impact of federal housing assistance. Future directions for policy are considered, including the expansion of housing assistance for families, and additional research is urged on the impacts of housing affordability on children by scholars within the field of education.