Owning or Owing: The Impact of Homeownership Status on Loneliness through Financial Strain and Anxiety among Older Adults in Canada


Fahimeh Mehrabi, University of Calgary

Loneliness significantly impacts the health of older adults, manifesting in associations with increased disability, functional decline, heightened mortality risks, and mental health challenges. Research in gerontology often focuses on the deficits in social relationships as primary contributors to loneliness. However, the stress process perspective encourages a broader consideration of how individuals positions within the social structure impact their mental health. This framework highlights how pervasive social stressors, present across various life domains, can particularly affect those in disadvantaged positions, potentially leading to adverse mental health outcomes. An often-overlooked marker of disadvantage, especially among older adults, is housing status. In the later stages of life, homeownership could represent financial stability and asset accumulation, and homeowners were less touched by severe socioeconomic struggles. In contrast, older adults renting houses or paying mortgages were likely to face socioeconomic barriers. Also, the lack of homeownership in later years entails uncertainties and instabilities associated with renting or continuous financial pressures of mortgage payments, creating a clear economic divide between these groups. Housing status thus, emerges as a significant social stressor within the social hierarchy, affecting certain individuals more than others and playing a key role in their mental health and emotional experiences. In the current economic landscape of Canada, marked by rapidly increasing living expenses and soaring housing costs, the significance of homeownership, or the lack thereof, takes on a new dimension of relevance, particularly for the older adult population who are often more vulnerable to economic shifts. Recognizing that homeownership, mortgage payments, and renting each present unique financial and emotional challenges, this study accordingly categorizes participants into these specific housing statuses. Outright homeowners are used as the baseline for comparison, as they typically represent financial stability and security, unlike their counterparts grappling with mortgages or the unpredictability of rental living. The study employs the stress process perspective to examine how homeownership status relates to increased loneliness among older adults, a demographic often most affected by economic shifts. The stress process perspective suggests an indirect effect including different stressors. Primary social stressors, in this case, the overarching housing status, can set in motion a series of secondary stressors, potentially spiraling into other mental health challenges. Within this framework, the study examines the roles of financial strain and anxiety as key mechanisms (serial mediators) through which homeownership status may influence feelings of loneliness. While the stress process perspective typically views anxiety as an outcome, this study positions anxiety in a dual role: firstly, as an outcome of financial strain and, secondly, as a mediator that leads to loneliness. The study utilizes data from the Caregiving, Aging, and Financial Experiences (CAFE) Study, which included 3,810 participants and was conducted in 2021. The results reveal significant differences in loneliness levels among older adults based on housing status. Mortgage payers and renters show higher mean levels of loneliness compared to outright homeowners, even after adjustments for age, gender, education, and marital status. This variation in loneliness is explained through a serial mediation effect: homeownership status influences financial strain, leading to increased anxiety, which in turn contributes to heightened loneliness. This statistically significant sequential path emphasizes a cascade effect, where the lack of homeownership intensifies loneliness through financial strain and anxiety. The findings of this study represent a substantial contribution to the sociology of mental health, offering fresh perspectives that extend beyond the established narrative of financial well-beings influence on mental health. Focusing on the specific context of older Canadian adults, the study illuminates the profound impact of housing status on emotional experiences in later life. This research shifts the narrative from viewing anxiety solely as an outcome to recognizing it also as a mediating factor by showing how anxiety, stemming from financial strain acts as a bridge leading to loneliness. The results also highlight the critical need for strategies to address loneliness among older adults through an integrated approach, considering economic conditions and emotional support. Policy measures could include establishing financial support programs to lessen the burden of housing costs for older adults. Additionally, community-based interventions could aim to bolster social support networks and improve access to mental health services, thereby reducing isolation and its psychological effects, particularly for mortgage payers and renters.

This paper will be presented at the following session: