Housing Insecurity in England: A quantitative analysis

This thesis makes an original contribution to the body of research on welfare reform and
housing outcomes by investigating the unequal effects of policy changes and wider
economic shifts on housing insecurity in England in the 21st century. In particular, the
research explores the populations and places that are most vulnerable to increases in
housing insecurity associated with the introduction of Universal Credit. The research also
situates these changes within the wider timeline of housing insecurity in England,
considering their interactions with the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. These research
questions were investigated using quantitative methods including difference-in-differences,
logistic regression, and multilevel modelling applied to Understanding Society and British
Household Panel Survey data (2003 to 2022).

The thesis provides insights into current and developing populations and places that are at
disproportionate risk of experiencing housing payment problems, and current flaws in the
Universal Credit system that contribute to unequal and sometimes harmful housing
outcomes. The overarching timeline for working-age social and private renters and
mortgaged homeowners was found to be characterised by a large and persistent increase in
the risk of housing insecurity following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and the gradual
recovery from this crisis has been inhibited by the 2012 welfare reformst. Findings
demonstrated that the introduction of Universal Credit has a significant effect on increasing
the likelihood of housing insecurity for the overall sample of social and private renters in
comparison to the legacy benefits of Housing Benefit or Jobseeker’s Allowance. Vulnerability
to this effect was found to vary significantly according to demographic group, with
characteristics such as having a disability increasing the likelihood of housing insecurity, and
across low-level geographies of MSOAs and LSOAs.

The thesis highlights the misalignment between the current centralised nature of Universal
Credit and the spatial and demographic heterogeneity of the populations and places to which
it is applied. This negatively impacts particular population groups more than others, placing
these claimants at disproportionate risk of experiencing financial hardship and housing
insecurity. There is also potential for economic shocks to further entrench this inequality,
interacting with particular populations differently to aggregate existing housing inequalities or
generate new ones.