Housing Cost Burden and Maternal Stress among Very Low Income Mothers

Authors

Kaycee L. Bills, University of TennesseeFollow
Stacia Michelle West, University of TennesseeFollow
Jami Hargrove, University of TennesseeFollow

Keywords

Maternal stress, housing cost burden, poverty

Abstract

As the affordable housing shortage proliferates, more American households struggle with high housing cost burdens. Grounded in Belsky’s (1984) parenting stress framework, we use a weighted low-income sample from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study of mothers who rent their homes (N=388) to investigate a relationship between housing cost burden, or paying a substantial portion of income toward housing, and higher rates of reported maternal stress. Findings of the linear regression indicate that younger mothers and those paying 30% or more of their income each month toward rent have higher reported maternal stress scores. These findings are discussed with attention to practice and policy implications.

Recommended Citation

Bills, Kaycee L.; West, Stacia Michelle; and Hargrove, Jami (2019) "Housing Cost Burden and Maternal Stress among Very Low Income Mothers," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 46: Iss. 1, Article 6.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15453/0191-5096.4107
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol46/iss1/6