Measuring housing insecurity: the relationship with subjective well-being across family types in Italy

Although housing insecurity is widely recognized as a critical dimension of individual and household well-being, there is increasing research aimed at clarifying how this complex notion should be defined and measured. In this study, we introduce a new multidimensional measure of housing insecurity, employing a counting approach. Our measure considers a set of dimensions assessing housing affordability and neighborhood quality. As an empirical application, we examine its distribution in Italy and we study its relationship with subjective well-being across family types, for the period 2004–2020, drawing on data from the Bank of Italy’s Survey on Household Income and Wealth. Our results show two key findings. First, the descriptive analysis illustrates an overall increase in housing insecurity prevalence, with a slight decline after 2012. Nonetheless, although the number of housing insecure families decreases after 2012, those who remain affected experience heightened levels of housing insecurity. Second, we detect a negative, significant and sizeable relationship between housing insecurity and subjective well-being. Across family types, we find housing insecurity to be negatively associated with subjective well-being especially for couples with children and for single parents.