Housing Insecurity Among Teenage Mothers

Descent, affordable housing is foundational to physical and psychological health. Despite the growing interest in understanding the role of housing conditions in child and family well-being, existing studies have generally fallen short of capturing the interplay among multiple housing conditions and instead focused on a single dimension of housing (such as affordability, residential crowding). In addition, research on housing problems have usually been conducted in one demographic, low income families; yet, housing experiences of another vulnerable subpopulation, teenage mothers and children, are missing from most of the studies. The present study addresses these gaps in the literature by investigating the patterns of housing insecurity among families headed by teenage mothers. Using data from Massachusetts Health Families Evaluation-2 (MHFE-2), I conducted latent class analysis (LCA) to classify teenage mothers (N = 563) into homogenous subgroups of housing-related challenges called latent classes. Following the model selection, I examined the predictors of housing insecurity and the associations between latent class membership and utilization of home visiting services. Findings provided support the existence of four latent classes that best described teenage mothers’ housing experiences. Findings also indicated that several background and demographic characteristics differentiated among latent classes of housing-related challenges. I discuss the implications of these findings for housing and home visiting programs and policy.

Publication Date: 
2017