Better to Grow Up Poor in a Richer Place? Social Housing, Neighbourhood Comparisons, and English Teenagers’ Well-Being

Abstract

How does being comparatively socio-economically disadvantaged within their neighbourhood affect the lived experiences of young teenagers? We explore this question on a sample of 13 to 15-year-old teenagers living in social housing in England. We explore three major domains of young teenagers’ well-being: (a) their sense of generally leading a bad life, (b) conflictual family interactions, and (c) unhappy social interactions with their peers. We find that living in a social housing estate within a less deprived neighbourhood does not negatively affect teenagers’ general sense of leading a bad life and does not increase conflictual family interactions. But it does make them less likely to report unhappy social interactions with their peers, indicating a positive effect of social mixing at the neighbourhood level.