Children are known to experience poorer quality housing than adults, including in terms of overcrowding, and this has been linked to poorer child mental health.
This new briefing paper uses the child measure of poor quality housing available in Understanding Society to look at how this varies by tenure, ethnicity and household size, and it’s associations with child-wellbeing, and child health as reported by parents.
The analysis finds a relatively flat trend in children living in overcrowded households over Waves 1 to 13 (2009-2022) of the Study, with rates much higher in London and closely associated with household income and housing tenure. Overcrowding is significantly associate with poor child mental wellbeing.
Read the briefing note: Children in overcrowded households in the UK
Future of Children Research Springboard
This briefing note has been created by a research team from the Future of Children Research Springboard. Established researchers and analysts were invited to take part, creating projects using Understanding Society data. The Research Springboard explore three topic areas of interest: child development, child poverty and family resources, and childcare and early years provision. You can read more about the Research Springboard and the outcomes from the teams in the Working Paper The 2024 Future of Children Challenge: research springboard exploring the topics of children’s development, child poverty and childcare.
Family and householdsHousingYoung people
