The impact of neighbourhood on the income and mental health of British social renters

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of neighbourhood on the income and mental health of individuals living in social housing in the United Kingdom. We exploit a dataset that is representative and longitudinal to match people to their very local neighbourhoods. Using this, we examine the effect of living in a neighbourhood in which the population is more disadvantaged on the levels and change, over a 10-year window, of income and mental health. We find that social renters who live with the most disadvantaged individuals as neighbours have lower levels of household income and poorer
mental health. However, neighbourhood appears to have no impact on changes in either household income or individual mental health.