Housing and children’s development and wellbeing: evidence from Australian data

Abstract

A positive environment for early child development sets the foundation for an individual’s health and capability to participate in society economically and socially across the life-course. An extensive international literature demonstrates that the housing circumstances in which children are raised have significant impacts upon their development outcomes and wellbeing, and that housing may be an important mediating factor in the transmission of intergenerational and neighbourhood disadvantage. However, a recent scoping study highlighted the paucity of empirical evidence on the magnitude of these relationships for Australian families (Dockery et al. 2010—AHURI project 80551). Following the recommendations of that scoping study, this report provides empirical evidence on the associations between key housing variables and early childhood health and development outcomes based on data from Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) and Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC).