Tenure Mix Policies and Employment Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study in Scotland

1. Centre for Housing Research University of St Andrews Untangling the mix – a longitudinal investigation into tenure mix and employment outcomes in Scotland Dr David Manley & Dr Maarten van Ham

2. Outline • Introduce tenure mix policies • Previous literature on tenure mix outcomes • Why use longitudinal data • Research design • Models and outcomes • Policy implications • Future research – questions and data

3. Why tenure mix policies? • Policy designed to introduce home ownership into neighbourhoods with predominantly social renting. • Underlying idea is that high concentrations of social renting in neighbourhoods has negative effects on resident’s health, employment and well-being etc… • Creating a more balanced mix of tenures is though to lead to positive effects for residents.

4. What do we know? • Research shows that neighbourhoods with high levels of social renting have more unemployment, crime, and LLTI. • Research also shows that individuals in socially rented neighbourhoods are more likely to be unemployed and suffer from poorer health.

5. Problems with existing work • Ecological fallacy • Analyses at the level of neighbourhoods do not necessarily say anything useful about processes at the individual level. • Most analyses are cross sectional • Neighbourhoods high levels of social renting might not cause unemployment or poor health, but people with poor health might move to these neighbourhoods.

6. Our contribution to the literature • Individual level analysis (avoids the ecological problem) • Use of longitudinal data from the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS), allowing us to follow individuals over time (avoiding the cross sectional problem)

7. What is the Scottish Longitudinal Study? • A large-scale anonymised data set: 5.5% sample of the Scottish population • Based on 1991 and 2001 individual census records • Allowing researchers to study changes in individual lives over a 10 year period • With special permission it is possible to use additional data from: • Vital Events data (births, deaths, marriages) • National Health Service Central Register (NHSCR) data • NHS data (cancer registrations and hospital episodes)

8. Research Question • The literature suggests that individuals in neighbourhoods with high levels of social renting are less likely to escape unemployment or, if employed, to keep their job. • Research Question: To what extent does the neighbourhood tenure mix influence transitions out of unemployment?

9. Research design • Model whether the 1991 neighbourhood tenure mix influences the: • probability that those who are unemployed in 1991 have a job in 2001 • probability that those who are employed in 1991 have a job in 2001 • Controlling for individual & household characteristics

10. How did we measure tenure mix? • Proportion of social renting in an area grouped into 5 categories: 0-20% 20-40% 40-60% 60-80% 80-100% • Using CATTs – Consistent Areas Through Time

11. Analysis 1 Probability that those who are unemployed in 1991 have a job in 2001

12. 1991 unemployed 2001 employed NS NS NS - + NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS coefficients

13. NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS 1991 unemployed 2001 employed - + coefficients

14. Analysis 2 Probability that those who are employed in 1991 still have a job in 2001

15. 1991 employed 2001 employed NS NS - + NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS coefficients

16. 1991 employed 2001 employed NS - + NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS NS coefficients

17. Some conclusions • A high level of social renting in a neighbourhood has a negative effect on employment outcomes. • BUT, the effect is relatively small compared to the effect of individual & household characteristics. • AND the effect of a high level of social renting in a neighbourhood disappears when controlling for neighbourhood deprivation.

18. Policy Implications • Investing in improving neighbourhood deprivation levels through investing in individuals is likely to improve an individual’s chances on the labour market. • A possible side effect is that individuals leave the neighbourhood as their situation improves. • Creating a mix of social renting and owner-occupied housing is an effective way to decrease deprivation and is likely to create more sustainable neighbourhoods.

19. Future… • Investigate transitions instead of states. • Need for longitudinal studies feeding into evidence based policies. • Need for longitudinal data to fill the 10-year gap between the 1991 and 2001 census.

20. Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the support of the SLS team at the LSCS and in particular the support of Dr Zhiqiang Feng The SLS and the LSCS are funded by the: - Scottish Government - Scottish Funding Council (SFC) - Chief Scientist Office (CSO) - General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) - Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)