Mothers' homeownership and children's economic success 20 years later among a sample of US citizens

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.02.024Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Preventing economic hardship is critical to assuring children's health and well-being.

  • Homeownership is the largest contributor to family wealth and economic security.

  • Mothers' homeownership related to children's economic outcomes 20 years later.

  • Promoting homeownership may improve economic outcomes in future generations.

Abstract

Familial economic hardship, an adverse childhood experience (ACE) that increases children's risk for exposure to additional ACEs, can derail optimal child development. A compelling area with potential for reducing economic hardship and promoting healthy child development is housing. In the US, the largest contributor to family wealth is homeownership, which may contribute to a family's ability to provide their children opportunities to do better than previous generations. The objective of the current study was to examine the influence of homeownership on children's economic outcomes in adulthood. This study used data from two surveys conducted in the US, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the NLSY79 Young Adult survey, to examine the association between mothers' homeownership in 1994 and children's economic outcomes 20 years later. Adults whose mothers owned homes in 1994 were over 1.5 times more likely to own homes, attained higher education, and were moderately less likely to receive public assistance in 2014 compared to adults whose mothers did not own homes. This paper highlights the potential of homeownership to break the intergenerational continuity of poverty. Programs that help families purchase affordable housing hold promise in helping ensure children reach their full potential and improving economic outcomes in future generations.

Introduction

Nearly one fifth of children in the United States (US) live in poverty, and racial/ethnic minority children are disproportionately low income and poor (Semega, Fontenot, & Kollar, 2017). Moving up the economic ladder, over the course of one's life and across future generations, is central to the ‘American Dream’(The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2012); however, there is mounting evidence highlighting the challenges with upward mobility in the US (Carr & Wiemers, 2016; Fass, Dinan, & Aratani, 2009). For example, 70% of US children born into poverty will never reach the middle of the economic ladder, and for some populations (e.g., racial/ethnic minorities), the risk of remaining in poverty is higher (The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2012). Research focused on ‘intergenerational elasticity’ of economic mobility, or the ability to improve one's economic status, suggests that economic advantage is transmitted from one generation to the next to a much greater extent for higher-income families and children born to families with lower incomes are far less likely to experience generational economic advantage (Mitnik & Grusky, 2015).

Population health and economic prosperity rely on assuring the healthy development of all children. Difficulties encountered in childhood (e.g., poverty, housing instability, and child abuse and neglect), collectively referred to as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) (Bethell, Davis, Gombojav, Stumbo, & Powers, 2017; Felitti et al., 1998), can have profound and lasting effects on a full range of poor outcomes, including low educational attainment (Font & Maguire-Jack, 2016; Merrick, Leeb, & Lee, 2013), poorer physical and mental health (Edwards, Holden, Felitti, & Anda, 2003; Felitti et al., 1998; Gilbert et al., 2015; Remigio-Baker, Hayes, & Reyes-Salvail, 2014), risky health behaviors (Felitti et al., 1998; Gilbert et al., 2015), and decreased life opportunities (Metzler, Merrick, Klevens, Ports, & Ford, 2017). Exposure to ACEs, including economic hardship (AAP Council of Community Pediatrics, 2016), can result in a toxic stress response that derails optimal development by producing changes in gene expression, brain connectivity, immune function, and coping strategies adopted, which ultimately increase the risk of a host of poor health and social outcomes (Shonkoff, 2016), and ultimately premature death (Brown et al., 2009). Economic hardship is a particularly strong risk factor for children's exposure to additional ACEs such as child abuse and neglect (Sedlak et al., 2010). The impact of ACEs can reverberate across generations—children exposed to ACEs are at increased risk of adverse outcomes, and when they become parents, their children are at increased risk of experiencing ACEs. As such, breaking the cycle of poverty and ACEs is critical to assuring that all children have bright futures so that the next generation can also reach their full health and life potential.

A compelling area that provides unfulfilled promise for expanding and strengthening efforts that promote healthy development and reduce economic hardship is housing stability and homeownership. While there are certainly renters who experience housing stability, people move far less frequently if they are homeowners (Yun & Evangelou, 2016). Accordingly, parents who are homeowners may have less stress because of housing stability and may be better able to provide stimulation and emotional support in the home, which in turn, enhances their children's cognitive ability and reduces behavior problems (Haurin, Parcel, & Haurin, 2002), a risk factor for child abuse and neglect (Stith et al., 2009) and youth violence (Lipsey & Derzon, 1998). As such, homeownership may contribute to a family's ability to build wealth and provide their children access to opportunities so they can do better than previous generations (Rohe, Van Zandt, & McCarthy, 2002).

Moreover, in the US, the largest contributor to family wealth is homeownership (Mitnik & Grusky, 2015). Homeownership may support stability for children and help families grow equity—a necessary step towards generational wealth and economic mobility, and may ultimately reduce inequities in children's exposure to other ACEs. Given homeownership's role as a wealth building mechanism with benefits that are passed onto future generations, improving opportunities for homeownership may be an effective target of policies that improve economic stability for families aimed at preventing generational poverty and associated ACEs. While associations between housing instability and child wellbeing are established (Fowler & Farrell, 2017; Warren & Font, 2015), less is known about the potential generational benefit—or protective nature—of homeownership.

The purpose of the current study is to examine the relationship between mothers' (or their spouses') homeownership in 1994 and their children's economic success 20 years later. We hypothesize that adult children of mothers who owned homes in 1994 would be more likely to own homes themselves, be employed, have greater educational attainment, higher incomes, and less likely to be receiving public and cash assistance in 2014 than children of mothers who did not own homes in 1994.

Section snippets

Data

Data for this study are from two surveys conducted in the US, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) and the linked Young Adult survey (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). The surveys are linked according to the mother's and child's identification numbers (e.g., 22,401 and 22,402 would be the children of 224), and each of the mother's children are surveyed. For the purposes of this study, we used data for parental home ownership from the 1994 survey and data on the adult children

Results

After controlling for covariates, logistic regression models found that adult children with mothers who owned a home in 1994 were over 1.5 times (95% CI: 1.22, 1.92) more likely to own a home in 2014 than their peers whose mothers did not own a home. In fact, maternal homeownership emerged as one of the strongest predictors of homeownership 20 years later, second only to the adult child's marital status in 2014, as young adults who were married (and perhaps had access to two incomes) were over

Discussion

Addressing generational poverty and providing families and children access to opportunities for economic mobility may help assure that all children reach their full potential. The current study suggests that maternal homeownership is related to children's ability to own homes themselves. Specifically, adult children of mothers who were homeowners 20 years earlier had significantly greater educational attainment, were less likely to receive public assistance, and were 1.6 times more likely to

Declaration of interest

None.

The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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