A new look at the housing impacts of partnership dissolution

1. A new look at the housing impacts of partnership dissolution Rory Coulter, University of Cambridge Michael Thomas, University of Groningen Clara H Mulder, University of Groningen ESRC Centre for Population Change, University of Southampton, 16/02/17

2. Outline • Background • Theory and previous findings • Research questions • Research design • Data and definitions • Attrition • Results • Conclusions and next steps

3. 1. BACKGROUND

4. 1. Economic impacts of separation Gendered economic consequences of divorce highlighted by early longitudinal studies • Hoffman (1977); Duncan and Hoffman (1985); Burkhauser et al. (1991); Smock (1993) Consistent US evidence that women experienced greater falls in living standards • Lower human capital lower incomes (Smock, 1993) • Child custody arrangements erode female and increase male disposable income (not fully counterbalanced by support payments or welfare transfers) (Duncan and Hoffman, 1985)

5. 1. Economic impacts of separation Similar patterns evident in Britain Source: Jenkins (2009) • Key points • Gendered impacts last a long time • Some improvements for women in 2000s • Housing and living arrangements matter! • (Fisher and Low, 2009; 2012) +13% £ -22% £

6. 1. Separation and housing Separation often a ‘turning point’ in the housing career (Stone et al. 2014) • Alters trajectory and identities (Gotlib and Wheaton, 1997) Homeowner Renting Renting with partner Shared housing Parental home

7. 1. Impacts on housing careers

8. 1. Conditional impacts Consequences for housing may be less pronounced… Understanding the conditional impacts of splitting up is therefore important Homeowner Homeowner Homeowner Homeowner Renting

9. 1. Conditioning factors INDIVIDUAL LEVEL Gender, children, income, tenure, housing history (contract status) Resources & restrictions Housing consequences Institutions LOCAL CONTEXT Urbanization, tenure structures, housing costs Opportunities & constraints

10. 1. Research gaps Existing work neglects ‘time and place’ effects (Elder, 1994) • Place: rarely consider geography • Emphasis on cross-national welfare arrangements, not local geography of housing systems (Dewilde, 2008)

11. 1. Geography of English housing systems Homeownership Private rental Source: National Housing Federation (2014: 24-25)

12. 1. Research gaps Existing work neglects ‘time and place’ effects (Elder, 1994) • Time: focused on homeownership in 1990s-2000s • Older literature on separation in council housing (Sullivan, 1986) • BUT reduced homeownership and rapid growth in private renting since 2003 • Also new Housing Benefit regime (SAR to age 35; LHA at 30% BRMA; benefit caps), constrained access to social sector

13. 1. Homeownership over time Source: Redfern Review (2016)

14. 1. Accessibility of homeownership Source: Own calculations using DCLG Live Tables and ONS HPSSA. FTB=first time buyer.

15. 1. Tenure change through the GFC Source: NHF (2014)

16. 1. Aims and questions Need to take a fresh look at housing aftermath of separation • Focus on (i) renters and (ii) geographical variations Research question “How do the housing outcomes of partnership dissolution vary by tenure and across space in England and Wales?” Particular interest in how conditioned by gender, children, resources and housing history (contract status)

17. 2. RESEARCH DESIGN

18. 2. Data and sample Understanding Society W1 (2009/10) – W6 (2014/15) Relationship grid to identify separations, defined as: “a transition from a legal marriage or cohabiting union observed at the wave t interview to living apart from the wave t spouse or partner at the wave t+1 interview” (Jenkins, 2009) Discard TSMs, same-sex couples, widowed and 256 cases where partners split but stay in same HH

19. 2. Problem A: Family attrition 14% of enumerated couples at t lost completely t+1 • 12% of interviewed cases (8% in BHPS, Brewer and Nandi 2014: 8) • Cannot know if split up

20. 2. Problem B: Break up attrition Attrition correlates with separation (2.3% couples separate) By using both partners’ records we can identify cases where separation occurs but one partner is lost • 641 of 977 separating men tracked (66%) • 1070 of 1214 separating women tracked (88%) • Equivalents 78% and 94% in BHPS (Brewer and Nandi, 2014: 9) Potential problem if loss is selective

21. 2. Logit models of attrition Notes: ***=p<0.001 **=p<0.01 *=p<0.05 +=p<0.1 Insignificant controls not shown (London, education, employment, income) Implication May need to adjust models for selective dropout Work ongoing

22. 2. Defining housing outcomes Short panel so look at t to t+1 transitions (1480 events) Outcome at t+1 has four categories • Homeownership (39.7%) • Social tenancy (19.1%) • Private tenancy (27.6%) • Parental home/sharing (15.3%) Range of lagged individual level predictors

23. 2. Defining geography Match 2011 census LSOA codes onto UKHLS to create custom housing market area geographies (GIS) 34753 LSOAs in England and Wales • Mean 2011 population = 1614 individuals, 672 households Concentrate on England and Wales as: • Differences in Scottish divorce laws (Fisher and Low, 2009) • Housing market geographies not defined for Scotland/N. Ireland • UKDS SN7248 dataset has no Scottish datazone codes before W6!

24. 2. Housing Market Areas (HMAs) CURDS project for NHPAU Use commute and migration patterns to create ‘functional’ areas Strategic (83) and single tiers (102) defined We use ‘silver standard’ versions Blackburn London Source: Coombes and Wymer (2010)

25. 2. City Regions Coarser geography (33 units) Defined from migration patterns Source: Stillwell et al. (2000)

26. 3. RESULTS

27. 3. Destinations for homeowners

28. 3. Destinations for social tenants

29. 3. Destinations for private tenants

30. 3. Destinations for parental home/sharing

31. 3. Changes in housing position

32. 3. Modelling framework Initial multinomial models of housing outcomes • Interactions of key predictors (kids, lagged status) with gender Separations nested within geographies so begin with variance components random intercepts logistic regression models Small n (1480) and sparse cells so use MCMC in MLwiN • Long chains needed to get stable results • 12 separate models (4 outcomes x 3 geographies)

33. 3. Variance components models

34. 3. Multinomial model: Single tier HMA Notes: Extra controls for wave, housing contract status and survey origin. Bold indicates coefficient p<0.05.

35. 3. Predicted probabilities: Owning

36. 3. Predicted probabilities: Social tenancy

37. 3. Predicted probabilities: Private tenancy

38. 3. Predicted probabilities: Parents/sharing

39. 4. Conclusions and next steps

40. 4. Preliminary conclusions • Separation a demographic risk with housing consequences • Reduced homeownership, increase renting/parents/sharing • Gendered impacts, especially if children present • Minor role of local geography • Lower post-split homeownership in costly HMAs • Increased private renting, increased family instability?

41. 4. Next steps Two step models Relational variables Housing contract status Exit decision Move out Stay Destination selection Opportunity structure Parental home/share Owning Social rent Private rent

42. 4. Next steps Two step models Test extra geographical variables (eg. tenure diversity) Examine longer term impact of separation on housing trajectories • objective of PartnerLife project (https://partnerlifeproject.org/)

43. Acknowledgements Rory Coulter’s contribution to this research is supported by an Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leaders award [ES/L009498/1]. Financial support from the Isaac Newton Trust is also gratefully acknowledged. Michael Thomas and Clara Mulder’s work on this paper is part of the project ‘Partner relationships, residential relocations and housing in the life course’ (PartnerLife). Principal investigators: Clara H. Mulder (University of Groningen), Michael Wagner (University of Cologne) and Hill Kulu (University of St Andrews). PartnerLife is supported by a grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research [NOW, grant number 464-13-148], the Deutsche ForschungsGemeinschaſt [DFG, grant number WA1502/6-1] and the Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC, grant number ES/L0166X/1] in the Open Research Area Plus scheme. Understanding Society (UKHLS) is an initiative funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and various Government Departments, with scientific leadership by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, and survey delivery by NatCen Social Research and Kantar Public. The research data are distributed by the UK Data Service. The authors are solely responsible for all analyses and interpretations of the data. Census statistics are adapted from data from the Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. We are grateful to Mike Coombes for supplying the HMA shapefiles used in this project.

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