From the Maryland Population Research Center

Kristin Perkins, Georgetown University

The Hidden Private Safety Net: Shared Households and Older Adults’ Housing Costs

Monday, November 16, 2026 - 12:00PM to 1:00PM
Where: 2208 LeFrak Hall / Zoom 

"Standard measures of hardship capture residual need that remains after the private safety net has operated. But taking support from family and friends for granted may misstate the level of need  – and disparities in needs – left by private markets and the public safety net. We demonstrate using the case of older adults’ housing affordability. Using Survey of Income and Program Participation data, we find that 15% of older adults are hosts, who share their home with others, and 6% are guests, who live in someone else’s home. Counterfactual estimates reveal that guests pay $793 less a month on housing than we predict they would in nonshared housing, and hosts pay $53 more. Without shared households, we estimate that half of Black, Hispanic, and Asian older adults would experience cost burdens, and racial disparities would be up to three times larger. Results illustrate how the private safety net dramatically shapes our understanding of social problems like the housing affordability crisis, especially for groups that rely heavily on support from family and friends."

Kristin L. Perkins is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University. 

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