Wednesday, July 28, 2021

MILLENIAL ANARCHISM; CONSENSUS POLITICS

Political discussions focused on consensus more comfortable, less divisive for students

A new study found more U.S. high school students felt respected in a political discussion designed as a deliberation—where the goal was to reach consensus—than in a group debate, and their views also moved closer toward agreement. Students engaged in group debate were generally more polarized after the activity.

Published in the Peabody Journal of Education, the study's findings could help teachers to structure political discussions in social studies classrooms, depending on the skills they want students to learn. In classrooms with high political diversity, deliberation could help reduce division.

"In our highly polarized climate, do we want kids to become more entrenched in their views, or more open to learning about the issues?" said the study's first author Paula McAvoy, associate professor of teacher education at NC State. "The value of deliberation is it can promote an openness to changing your mind and being persuaded. The debate model promotes taking a position and fighting for it. These findings can help teachers decide which skills they want students to learn, depending on how they structure classroom discussions."

In the study, researchers surveyed and observed 165 high school students who participated in political discussions in the fall of 2019 as part of the civic education program Close Up Washington. The program brings around 20,000 middle and high school students from public and private schools around the country to Washington D.C. for a week-long study of the federal government.

"This program offered us a chance to study a lab-like experience of high school students in political discussions," said study co-author Gregory McAvoy, professor of political science at UNC-Greensboro.

For political discussions held through the program, students were provided with background materials on issues and encouraged to discuss, with civility, issues including criminal justice reform, climate change, gun regulation, health care and immigration. In deliberations, students first read about different policy proposals. Then students discussed the proposals in small groups in order to try to come to consensus about a policy they all endorse, and presented their findings to the larger group. In debates, students formed two opposing teams, and then each student prepared persuasive arguments to try to win over a panel of their peers.

Ninety percent of participants they surveyed reported they felt respected in the deliberation that focused on consensus, and 91 percent reported they felt good about their comments. In comparison, 76 percent of students who engaged in debate felt respected during the activity, and 70 percent felt good about their comments.

"In terms of what made students feel more comfortable, we think the tone of the deliberation led more students to report feeling comfortable because it's collaborative, and not adversarial," Paula McAvoy said. "The debate was challenging because everyone had to stand up and make a 30-second comment to the group. A lot of students got nervous about that."

Young women were significantly more likely to report hearing something offensive during either type of discussion, to report they were more hesitant to speak, and were less likely to say they felt good about the comments they made. They did not find any statistically significant differences by race or ethnicity.

Students who responded to the survey were 79 percent white, 24 percent Latinx, 5 percent Black, and 2 percent Asian, with some students selecting more than one category. They were 54 percent female and 44 percent male. Two percent declined to answer. The sample was politically diverse, with an approximately even distribution of students identifying as conservative, liberal, moderate and unsure. However, the researchers said the respondents tended to more white, more conservative and wealthy compared to the demographics of Gen Z across the United States.

They plotted student's attitudes on specific issues before and after the deliberations and debates. For students who participated in consensus deliberations, they saw attitudes on the assigned issues start out dispersed—either with a wider distribution of views or two divided peaks. After the deliberation, researchers saw a trend across groups of views moving toward agreement. They saw more polarization—a move toward two opposing positions—after debates.

"In the debates, most of the talk that happens involves students talking to others who agree with them, and figuring out why the other team is wrong," Paula McAvoy said. "A lot of teachers use debate as a critical thinking activity, but you might actually be causing students to become more divided on issues."

The findings could help social studies teachers to structure discussions at a time when political culture is highly polarized. Previous studies have shown that students are increasingly arriving at schools with partisan animosity and anxiety related to politics, making teachers hesitant to bring politics into the classroom.

"What we're finding is that with appropriate structure and design, students are able to have student-centered, civil, informed discussions about highly controversial issues," Paula McAvoy said. "Even though there was a lot of political disagreement in the room, students were able to talk across their differences."

To see if their conclusions hold, researchers want to repeat the study with a larger sample size. They also want to find out if deliberation and debates look different with groups of different beliefs, ethnicities and other demographic factors.

The study, "Can Debate and Deliberation Reduce Partisan Divisions? Evidence from a Study of High School Students" was published online in the Peabody Journal of Education on July 14, 2021.

More bullying of LGBTQ+ students in politically conservative districts

More information: Paula McAvoy et al, Can Debate and Deliberation Reduce Partisan Divisions? Evidence from a Study of High School Students, Peabody Journal of Education (2021). DOI: 10.1080/0161956X.2021.1942706

Provided by North Carolina State University

When restricting capital movement, don't go it alone

by J.d. Warren, University of California - Riverside

When it comes to avoiding reputational costs of economic policy controls, there is safety in numbers.

That's the finding of a recent study of capital controls, or government restrictions on the cross-border movement of money and capital. The researchers assert it's one of the most systematic studies yet of the reputational risks associated with capital controls among emerging markets.

"We know governments' capital account policies are not implemented independently," said Steven Liao, a UC Riverside political scientist and co-author of the study. "What was less clear is exactly how, why, and to what extent peers matter. Our study sheds light on these questions from a reputational perspective."

Capital flow volatility, or CFV, is when the movement of international investment into and out of an economy poses risks to a market's stability. When capital inflows accelerate, countries get worried about things like banking crises and inflation. In contrast, rapid capital outflows can lead to foreign exchange reserve depletion, currency crashes, asset price busts, etc.

One policy response to risks from CFV can be restricting investors ability to move money out of the economy in turbulent times—a tool referred to as "outflow controls." Governments can accomplish this by imposing quotas on how much money investors can take out of the economy, by imposing taxes on such transactions, or by imposing outright bans.

"There are some who believe that outflow controls can and should be used under certain circumstances and that they can have a stabilizing effect on an economy," said Daniel McDowell, Liao's co-author and an associate professor of political science at Syracuse University. "There are others, however, who believe that they tend to be ineffective and so they don't offer much in terms of added stability, but they may reduce investment in the future by turning off investors."

In any event, the authors say that outflow controls are an instrument policymakers want at their disposal when facing volatile capital flows. And it's a tool that emerging markets and developing countries would go to more often if they didn't fear long-term damage to their economy's investment reputation, the authors write.

Foreign investors balk at the notion of countries restricting their ability to repatriate capital or profits. Simply, investors want liberal policies so they can invest their capital as they wish. And they may consider such constraints "tantamount to default" as governments are seen as reneging on a commitment to financial openness, Liao and McDowell wrote in the recently published study.

And so governments fear such controls will spook long-term investment in their countries. These reputational fears can constrain policy choices.

The study authors argue governments have good reason to consider using outflow controls when facing highly volatile capital flows. But the authors theorized that governments may be afraid to use the policy tool for fear that it will harm their reputation among international investors. Liao and McDowell suggest that whether outflow controls will damage a country's reputation depends largely on what one's peer countries are doing.

If peer countries are not restricting capital outflows, it will hurt a country's reputation to employ outflow controls on its own. In this case, the government's policies will be viewed as extreme and out of step with its "liberal" peer economies. A tarnished reputation may reduce future inflows of foreign capital or even damage a country's bond rating. However, if peer markets are also restricting capital outflows, the authors say the reputational damage will be reduced because "everyone is already doing it"—and any reputational damage will be distributed across all countries in the peer group.

For the study, the authors looked at a myriad of factors involving 25 emerging markets and developing countries from 1995 to 2015. The countries ranged from Eastern European countries such as Russia, Poland, Ukraine, and Romania; South American countries such as Brazil, Peru, and Chile; China; Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Thailand and South Asian countries such as India and Bangladesh.

Among the factors, they considered the countries' exposure to CFV; geography; bond ratings and partisanship (right, center, left). The study also looked at similarity among emerging economies using a Morgan Stanley Capital Management classification system that divides countries into three categories based on their performance in equity markets: developed markets, emerging markets, and frontier markets.

Additionally, the authors looked at the size of countries' economies, their level of economic development, interest rates, exchange rates, inflation, and openness to trade with other countries.

The study found that as CFV increases, emerging markets are more likely to employ capital outflow controls. However, additional analyses show that the relationship only holds when a country's peer markets are also using outflow controls. Countries facing CFV were about twice as likely to increase outflow restrictions when geographic peer countries had the same restrictions in place. They were also more likely to enact restrictions when equity or bond market peers had the same restrictions. Overall, a typical country's restrictions increase by around 13 to 23% when their country-peers in these categories had done the same thing.

But when a country's market peers were not restricting outflow controls, the authors find no evidence that CFV leads to outflow controls. In other words, when peers have "liberal" policies that are friendly to investors, governments appear reluctant to use outflow controls for fear that it will harm their reputation among investors.

"Together, these results support our expectation that as (volatility) increases, emerging market governments are more likely to tighten restrictions on capital outflows, but only when market peers have already employed (similar) measures," Liao wrote.

Conversely, countries are more likely to lay off restrictive policies when peer countries maintain liberal policies.

"Reputational considerations play a meaningful role in dictating whether emerging markets impose restrictions on capital outflows in response to destabilizing (volatility)," the authors continued.

The authors suggest fears of reputational damage are driving decisions across the board on whether to restrict control outflows. But the authors say countries are missing a key distinction when making these decisions: if peer countries are also controlling capital outflows, it does less damage to a reputation—significantly less.

Liao said the study instructs that analysts should not weigh policy choices in isolation: restricting capital outflow might cause minimal damage to your country's reputation if peer countries are doing the same thing.

"The intensity of reputational damage associated with the use of outflow controls should be conditional on the use of such controls in a country's market peers," Liao wrote. "When a country's market peers are using outflow controls, governments should anticipate that the reputational costs… decrease since the negative signal that outflow controls send to investors will be weakened."

Countries can draw from the study's lesson, Liao said, by understanding reputational consequences from capital controls aren't a constant.

"We hope the study can help emerging markets identify when outflow controls may be an economically or politically feasible policy option against capital volatility," he said.

How governments' tough COVID restrictions can help limit economic damage

More information: Steven Liao et al, Closing Time: Reputational Constraints on Capital Account Policy in Emerging Markets, Review of International Organizations (2021). DOI: 10.1007/s11558-021-09433-1

Journal information: Review of International Organizations

Provided by University of California - Riverside

Keeping nonprofit CEOs out of the room when boards decide what to pay them yields good results

by Ilona Babenko, The Conversation

boardroom — Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

Keeping nonprofit chief executive officers out of meetings when members of their boards discuss or vote on compensation can lead to these CEOs making less money and working harder.

This is a key finding from a study of nonprofit pay I recently completed with two fellow finance scholars, Benjamin Bennett and Rik Sen. We reached this conclusion after reviewing data for more than 14,700 nonprofits across the country from paperwork most nonprofits must file with the Internal Revenue Service every year, known as Form 990, and the associated Schedule J, which includes compensation.

We zeroed in on 1,698 nonprofits located in New York to see if their CEO pay changed after new regulations took effect in 2013. Since then, New York has prohibited nonprofit officers from being present at meetings where their pay is being discussed.

We found that compensation was an average of 2%-3% lower than expected by comparing pay for nonprofit CEOs in New York with pay in other states. We also compared the change in CEO pay with compensation changes for other executives' pay at the same nonprofits—since they weren't affected by this legislation.

We also found that many nonprofits changed how they handled executive compensation. That is, they were more likely to set up compensation committees, perform an independent compensation review or adjust pay to be in line with similar organizations. Nonprofit CEO bonuses also became more correlated with the growth of an organization's budget—a strong indicator of overall performance.

And we found that, despite earning less than they might have expected, nonprofit CEOs spent about 2% more time working—without any additional turnover.

Interestingly, we also determined that by some measures, the nonprofits became better-run after the legislation took effect. For example, 2% more people chose to volunteer, and funding from donations and grants grew by 4%.

High CEO pay is a hotly debated topic.

Nonprofit CEOs make considerably less money than corporate CEOs and have experienced a slower wage growth over the last decade. Based on our estimates, corporate executives saw their annual pay grow by 54% from 2009 to 2017 to an average value of US$3.2 million, while nonprofit executives experienced a 15% increase in pay, reaching an average value of $396,000 in 2017—the most recent year for which we obtained IRS data.

Nevertheless, because mosty nonprofits are exempt from income tax and many accept donations, it's only natural that the government and funders would not want to waste their money on excessive compensation. For example, food bank donors might prefer to see nonprofits spend more of their dollars on feeding the hungry as opposed to perks and big pay packages.

In recent years, some alarming accounts of exorbitant CEO pay and self-dealing practices at nonprofits have come to light. These include the scandals that have rocked the Wounded Warrior Project and the National Rifle Association.

One possible reason why nonprofit CEO pay is growing much more slowly than for-profit CEO compensation is that nonprofit leaders are committed to specific causes and have more motives aside from money to excel at their work than their corporate counterparts. Other possibilities could be that nonprofits face pressure from donors to avoid high executive pay or that nonprofit CEOs have little leverage.

We hope that our future research will answer this question.

Gender pay gaps in nonprofits are even greater when there is room for salary negotiations

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Many taxi drivers discriminate against wheelchair users

by Amanda Hanson, Nottingham Trent University

We live in a society where disabled people routinely suffer identity-based discrimination resulting in them being made to feel unequal.

The recent article published by the BBC on the experience of disabled actress Ruth Madeley by a taxi driver, where he told her it was "too difficult" to drop her at an accessible entrance and it wasn't his problem if she couldn't use stairs, highlights just one example of disablist attitudes by transport providers.

This concurs to my current research where a severely visually impaired woman was dropped at the side of a busy road by a taxi driver, for which she then had to struggle to get across to the other side safely.

This kind of behavior by taxi drivers is more widespread within society than people may think. While many taxi drivers don't discriminate or have disablist attitudes some do.

My research has found that wheelchairs users are being told by taxi operators there are no accessible taxis available and that taxi drivers themselves are refusing to take those in powered wheelchairs.

One individual stated, "I approached five taxis who all refused to take me home when my power wheelchair was about to die."

If they do finally manage to access a taxi, they are being charged higher rates compared to those who are able-bodied.

These extra charges have previously been highlighted in an undercover study carried out by BBC's Inside Out in 2015. There has also been one landmark case where a taxi driver was taken to court after refusing to take a wheelchair user to the train station and causing her to become upset and missing her train.

Yet, six years on cases like this are still occurring and there seems to be a lack of consequence for the taxi drivers who are committing these discriminatory acts.

This is a clear breach of the Equality Act 2010 sect 165 & 167 which includes a requirement for drivers to accept and assist wheelchair users and make no extra charge. As a society, we should be calling out behavior that treats people unequally and unfairly as unacceptable. Local authorities should be implementing license bans for those committing this kind of behavior, as this targeting of wheelchair users should be deemed prejudicial.

Many wheelchair users rely on taxis rather than public transport, they are more convenient, and they are preferable especially when considering the negative often hostile attitudes that disabled people regularly experience from other passengers and public transport staff.

Disabled people often suffer isolation due to their disability which prevents them from fully taking part in society. Last year marked the celebration of 25 years since the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. While this legislation was a step in the right direction, one of those being the recognition of the lack of access to transport for disabled individuals, these access issues are still happening in the 21st century and this is a clear reminder that more needs to be done.

Similarly, numerous studies highlight that disabled people face economic disadvantages and are more likely to be living in poverty compared to those who are able-bodied. These higher charges are impacting upon them financially. Therefore, this discriminatory behavior from taxi drivers serves to compound the existing problems that disabled people have faced for years.

The key focus requires taking a stand against attitudes that reinforce disablism. Public organizations like local authority licensing departments need to develop public communications and implement awareness-raising to challenge these discriminatory mindsets and practices, to help safeguard wheelchair users and implement consequences for those who continue to exhibit discriminatory and disablist attitudes.

The implementation of these kinds of strategies would be a step in the right direction to address the extent of this issue, to allow wheelchair users to regain their independence within society.

Taxi driver unions protest Uber's return to Barcelona

More information: BBC article: www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-57838553
BBC Inside Out: www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-st … affordshire-31169638

Provided by Nottingham Trent University

How inheritance laws affect child height in India

by Binghamton University

Can an inheritance law lead to taller children? The answer is a qualified yes, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Md Shahadath Hossain, a fifth-year doctoral candidate, and Assistant Professor of Economics Plamen Nikolov recently published "Entitled to Property: Inheritance Laws, Female Bargaining, and Child Health in India," with the IZA Institute of Labor Economics.

"The question is important because it shows the critical importance of how better parental care and parental investments can have an enormous influence on child height," Nikolov said. "And we know from extensive economic research that height in early childhood is strongly predictive of cognitive ability, educational attainment, labor market outcomes and occupational choice in later life."

Indian children are extremely short, and not as a result of typical human height variation. They experience a phenomenon known as stunting, in which they don't grow as much as they otherwise would, due to factors such as malnutrition. Stunting affects 31 percent of Indian children under the age of five, surpassing their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa and accounting for parental wealth and education.

While biology and genetics drive many health outcomes, individual behaviors also play an important role, particularly with such characteristics as height. At a population level, better nutrition and parental care can contribute to taller children, Nikolov pointed out. In the case of patrilineal Hindu communities in India, a pregnant woman is likely to receive more family resources—such as nutritious foods, iron supplements, tetanus shots and prenatal checkups—if there is a possibility that she is carrying the family's firstborn son.

Also at play is the non-unitary economic model of the household, in which partners tend to have unequal weight in decision-making due to power dynamics. The partner with more bargaining power—for example, from having more financial resources at their disposal—has more of a say in household decisions.

Men and women in a household also typically exhibit different economic preferences when it comes to extra resources. When women get an income boost, they often spend a higher portion on healthcare, better nutrition and education-related expenditures than men do, studies show.

Except for matrilineal tribal communities, Hindu populations in India traditionally pass ancestral property down the male line; this type of property, which goes back for up to four generations, is distinct from personal property, which can be allocated through wills and gifts to whomever the giver chooses. In 1956, the Hindu Succession Act Amendment (HSAA) enabled unmarried daughters to inherit ancestral property for the first time. This policy has led to a cascade of changes; women in states with the HSAA also tend to marry later and have fewer children, for example.

It also made an impact on child health and height—but only the health of some children.

Human capital

When you factor the HSAA into the non-unitary model of household economics, you find that women—newly empowered with their inheritance—have more of a voice in decision-making, the researchers found. Combined with the gender disparity in economic choices, that means more resources may end up spent on child health and parental care, from clinic visits to better nutrition and vaccinations.

That, in turn, can and does make children taller—if they're first-born sons.

"The difference may be due to religious as well as cultural norms," Nikolov explained. "Hinduism prescribes a patrilineal kinship system, meaning that aging parents live with their son, typically the eldest, and bequeath property. Also, Hindu religious texts stipulate that only a male heir performs certain post-death rituals, such as lighting the funeral pyre, taking the ashes to the Ganges River and organizing death anniversary ceremonies."

Because of this, Indian society has a marked preference for the eldest son, which leads families to reduce the resources that they could otherwise spend on later-born children and daughters. Unless policies are put into place to counteract the social and economic forces behind son preference, Indian daughters may continue to receive less than their fair share, he said.

Despite this caveat, their research demonstrates that improving the economic status of women in a developing country can generate additional benefits in improving child health, which is an important marker for both better health and economic well-being later in life.

"In sum, policies that empower women can pay big dividends in terms of a country's human capital and economic development," Nikolov said. "Investing in women is not just the right thing to do; it's also smart economics."

Can gender inequality kill? Paper looks at impact among older Indian women

More information: Paper link: www.iza.org/publications/dp/14 … hild-health-in-india

Provided by Binghamton University

Poorest people twice as likely to feel lonely in lockdown, as compared to richest people

by University College London

Older people in the poorest sector of the population were more than twice as likely to feel isolated and lonely during the first lockdown than the richest, finds a new study led by researchers from UCL and the University of Manchester.

The researchers analyzed data from 4,709 older men and women aged over 50 living in England who are part of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) to explore changes in the experiences of social isolation and loneliness during the pandemic.

Researchers collected data on 'subjective social isolation', which referred to how isolated participants felt, as well as 'objective social isolation', which was defined by levels of contact with friends and family members or engaging in social events such as video calls.

The research team collected data before the pandemic started, and then during the first COVID-19 lockdown in June and July 2020, and in the second COVID-19 lockdown in November and December 2020.

The findings show that 19% of all the respondents reported high levels of subjective social isolation and the prevalence was higher during both COVID-19 waves compared with previous years. 9% reported high objective social isolation but this percentage decreased during the pandemic.

The authors noted that increased interaction with family and friends using remote methods, such as video calls, instead of face-to-face meetings during the pandemic appeared to be ineffective in fully combating increased feelings of social isolation and loneliness.

Lead author Dr. Georgia Chatzi (The University of Manchester) noted that they "found that both men and women experienced an increasing prevalence of subjective social isolation and loneliness during the pandemic but only men experienced higher objective social isolation.

"All age groups had higher subjective social isolation during 2020 compared with previous years, but those aged 50-59 were most affected. Adults older than 70 experienced larger increases in objective social isolation in the second half of 2020 and those aged 50-59 and older than 80 felt the loneliest during the pandemic."

The study found that 33% of people in the poorest quintile (bottom 20%) felt isolated in the first lockdown compared to 16% of those in the richest quintile. During the second lockdown 32% of those in the least wealthy quintile reported feeling isolated compared to 19% of those in the wealthiest quintile. Before the lockdown, 27% of those in the poorest quintile felt isolated compare to 13% in the richest.

Report co-author, Professor James Nazroo (The University of Manchester) said that "it is right to be worried about levels of loneliness among older people and how these increased during lockdown, but we should also pay attention to the stark inequalities in this and consider how these inequalities might be addressed."

Professor Andrew Steptoe (UCL Behavioural Science & Health and ELSA lead) explained that "social distancing strategies were very important for older adults, who were particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. However, this may have meant that older adults found it particularly hard to maintain social connections because of lower access to and use of digital technologies, and because of the greater likelihood of needing to socially isolate in addition to social distancing."

Older adults with multiple medical issues worse affected by canceled operations

More information: ELSA: www.elsa-project.ac.uk/

Provided by University College London

Addressing links between poverty, housing, water access and affordability in Detroit

by University of Michigan

In a new study of access to clean and affordable water in Detroit, University of Michigan researchers found that about 10% of the city's population is 'triple burdened', meaning those residents face higher than average rates of poverty, housing cost burden and incomplete plumbing.

And in some Detroit neighborhoods, up to 10% of homes lack complete access to water, meaning they lack either hot and cold running water, a bathtub or shower, or a sink with a faucet, according to the study funded by U-M's Poverty Solutions initiative.

"Ensuring water access and affordability for Detroit residents is critical," said Sara Hughes, an environmental policy analyst at the School for Environment and Sustainability and lead author of the study. "Solving the water access and affordability challenge in Detroit requires engaging with the interactive consequences of an aging system, high levels of poverty and persistent housing challenges."

Hughes and other researchers at SEAS and U-M's Erb Institute analyzed census tracts and mapped the overlap between various factors that affect water affordability. They assessed ways current actions, while effective, fail to meet the scale needed for the city to link residents with clean, affordable water.

In their Poverty Solutions policy brief, the authors also propose strategies to address water security concerns in Detroit:

Expand funding for residential plumbing repairs. As the federal government considers additional drinking water investments, resources should be available for repairs as well as direct bill assistance.
Use city water data to identify target investments, reach customers with the greatest need and reduce barriers to access.
Strengthen coordination between city departments. Greater coordination between the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, Detroit Health Department, Detroit Housing and Revitalization Department and the city's Office of Sustainability could help to identify synergistic and innovative strategies to prevent future systems from disrepair.

According to Hughes and her colleagues, Detroit's median household income ($30,894) is just over half the median for statewide households ($57,144), and more than one-third of the city's residents live below the poverty line. At the same time, 41% of the city's residents face high housing costs—defined as exceeding 30% of household income—and this number is even higher for renters (53%).

On top of that, nearly half of the city's residents pay more than 3% of their income for water, a common benchmark for water affordability. Water consumption per capita is much lower than the national average, yet Detroit residents still have higher water costs.

"The pandemic highlighted how important it is from a public health perspective that people have reliable access to clean water, for hand washing and other measures that are not possible if you don't have running water or can't afford your water bill," Hughes said. "People were also losing wages, making it even tougher to keep up with water bills."

The majority of Detroit residents' homes were built before 1950, and some low-income households are in some of the city's oldest homes, according to the Poverty Solutions policy brief. These aging homes are more likely to need costly repairs that heighten the burden of high housing costs.

The report notes that although state and federal programs exist to assist with energy concerns for households, like the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, similar programs do not exist for water concerns. Funds for water and sewage assistance for Michigan residents are reserved only for emergencies and have gone widely underused by the state.

For Detroit, programs like the Great Lakes Water Authority's Water Residential Assistance Program assist customers in low-income areas with water bills and reduction of water consumption. WRAP offers conservation audits to households exceeding 120% of the city's average water consumption, with a cap of $1,500 in repairs and maintenance costs.

However, insufficient funds have limited the number of homes WRAP has been able to assist, as well as the degree they are able to repair. The report found "nearly all (97%) of participating households needed additional plumbing repairs beyond those provided during the audit." The total number of homes WRAP assisted in 2019 was 2,047, which is about half of the total number of households that lacked complete plumbing.

The policy brief shows that existing programs, while they provide improvements, fail to meet the amount of Detroit households in need of aid to make substantial repairs.

Although plumbing repairs will not eliminate the water affordability crisis in Detroit, they are an essential step toward providing clean and accessible water, according to the report's authors.

Study shows over 1.1 million urban people in US live in homes without proper indoor plumbing

More information: Addressing the Links Between Poverty, Housing and Water Access and Affordability in Detroit: poverty.umich.edu/publications … dability-in-detroit/

Provided by University of Michigan

Rent, mortgage linked to worse health outcomes during early stages of pandemic

by Nardy Baeza Bickel, University of Michigan

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, having to make rent or mortgage payments was significantly associated with health and mental distress, according to new research from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

"Housing instability and COVID-19-related hardships have contributed to an increase in health inequities in the U.S.," said Gregory Bushman, U-M doctoral student in public health and lead author of the study. "On the other hand, stable housing may have lessened the negative health effects of some of the hardships that people have faced during the pandemic, such as job loss."

For their study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Bushman and Roshanak Mehdipanah analyzed the responses from the U.S. Census Household Pulse Survey Study, collected early in the pandemic between April and July 2020.

According to the survey, 22% of homeowners did not have to pay mortgages, while 46% paid mortgages and 32% rented their homes.

The researchers looked at how COVID-19-related hardships such as job loss, food insecurity and inability to pay housing-associated costs impacted survey respondents' assessments of self-rated health and mental distress.

They found that compared to those without mortgage debt, homeowners with mortgage debt and renters reported worse self-rated health and higher levels of mental distress. Additionally, they found that differences in self-rated health between these groups grew over time.

"Homeowners with mortgage debt and renters experienced job loss more and experienced mental distress and self-rated health at much higher levels compared to homeowners without mortgage and debt," said Mehdipanah, assistant professor of health behavior and health education and senior author of the study. "We know housing is a social determinant of health. We need to invest in both research and policy to develop affordable, adequate and accessible housing in cities in order to reduce health inequities."

Some of the study's findings include:

Renters were more likely to have experienced job loss (58%), food insecurity (48%) and inability to pay housing-associated costs during this period (32%) than homeowners. Renters also reported the poorest self-rated health and highest levels of mental distress.
Food insecurity and low confidence in paying rent/mortgage were associated with low self-rated health and high mental distress among both renters and homeowners.
Individuals who owned their homes without mortgage debt reported the best self-rated health and lowest levels of mental distress.

Mehdipanah said the study highlights the importance of housing as a determinant of health. In 2019, about 37 million Americans were paying more than 30% of their household income toward monthly housing costs. And an additional 17.6 million were spending more than half of their income on housing costs prior. These figures are expected to get worse since the pandemic.

"In addition, we're seeing for the first time a larger population over the age of 65 with mortgages that we had never seen before," she said. "Our study highlights how important housing is, especially at a time where the first measure or the first preventive piece was to stay at home and to wash your hands. If you don't have a house or your housing is unstable and you don't have running water to wash your hands, then you're now at higher risk for COVID-19 and an array of other different diseases and issues."

The researchers hope to continue their research on newer data to look at how existing programs and policies can reduce the socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic.

Number of Australians facing housing stress doubles

More information: Gregory Bushman et al, Housing and health inequities during COVID-19: findings from the national Household Pulse Survey, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (2021). DOI: 10.1136/jech-2021-216764

Journal information: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health