Homeowner versus renter household food insecurity before and after the 2008 recession

Objective: Canada was in recession from October 2008 to February 2009. Inappropriate home mortgage financing played a part in the US counterpart recession and possibly in Canada. The availability of national datasets collecting information on household food insecurity, homeownership, and sociodemographics before and after this period permitted a natural experiment examination of precipitous economic decline and resulting changes in household food insecurity by housing tenure. Methods: We used data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) cycles 4.1 (2007-2008; before) and 5.1 (2009-2010; after). Our sample included households led by respondents over 18 years, with responses to the Household Food Security Survey Module, and complete information regarding household-level sociodemographic characteristics of interest (cycle 4.1 n= 76,767; cycle 5.1 n= 68,050). Descriptive analyses and logistic regression were used to compare differences in household food insecurity between homeowner and renter groups. Results: Food insecurity affected approximately 3% of homeowner and 17% of renter households over the study period. After adjustment, renter households of either sex experienced a significant increase (OR=1.17; 95%CI 1.05-1.29) in food insecurity in 2009/2010 as did male homeowners (OR=1.26; 95% CI 1.06-1.50). The pattern of regional variation by provinces in household food insecurity between renters and homeowners also changed across CCHS cycles. Conclusion: It appears that males were hardest hit by the recession, as document by labor market analyses at the time. Differing policies affecting subgroups or changes in provincial housing markets may have been responsible for differing household food insecurity patterns observed regionally; notably, however, impacts of federal mortgage policies were not observed.