The Effects of Housing Instability on Children’s Educational Outcomes
NYU’s Furman Center and the Institute for Education and Social Policy have been awarded a grant by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to study the effects of housing instability on children’s educational outcomes in partnership with the University of Connecticut, Indiana University and Northwestern University.
The enormous upheavals in the housing arrangements of many American families over the last decade has exposed millions of children to housing instability, yet policymakers know surprising little about how these changes affect children. Past research has been limited by concerns that the impacts attributed to moving schools and homes could not be separated from the impacts of unobserved characteristics of the families that move and of the neighborhoods to which they move.
Using longitudinal data linking foreclosures and other kinds of housing upheavals to individual public school student records in four major markets suffering from unusual housing instability—New York City, and the counties of San Diego and Fresno in California and Pinellas County in Florida —we will test whether and how housing instability affects students’ educational outcomes. Because current housing instability often is attributable to changes and volatility in mortgage and housing markets rather than to changes in a family’s own characteristics, we are able to use a variety of empirical strategies to separate the effects of housing instability from the effects of unobserved family characteristics. Our primary strategy will be to compare the educational outcomes of students who have experienced housing instability to those of otherwise similar students who have not experienced such instability, before and after the instability.
Our findings will inform federal, state and local housing, mortgage finance and education policymakers about whether, when, and how they should intervene in housing markets or tailor educational processes to try to reduce any negative effects that housing instability may cause. Further, the findings will help policymakers at every level of government better estimate the benefits of providing more stable housing.
Research Partners:
- Vicki Been, NYU Law, Furman Center
- Ingrid Gould Ellen, NYU Wagner School of Public Service, Furman Center
- Amy Ellen Schwartz, NYU Steinhardt, NYU Institute for Education and Social Policy
- Leanna Stiefel, NYU Steinhardt, NYU Institute for Education and Social Policy
- Stephen Ross, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut
- David Figlio, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University
- Ashlyn Aiko Nelson, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University
