Mortgages, household economic resilience and health

The connection between our financial situation and health is a well-established idea in health economics and demographic research. Understanding how income, debt and wealth impact health is essential for designing effective public policies that promote social unity, equity, and fairness across communities. Many people view homeownership as a lifelong goal and research has consistently shown that owning a homea form of wealthcan lead to improved long-term health. However, buying a home often involves taking on a mortgage, which can create financial stress and make families more vulnerable to job losses and other economic challenges. While having wealth can help protect against financial difficulties, being in debt can create stress that negatively affects mental health and well-being. Dr. Michael Berger, during his Erwin-Schrödinger-fellowship, will investigate how financial pressures from home mortgages might counteract the health benefits of homeownership. His research will focus on the period immediately following home purchases, where financial obligations from mortgages may increase the vulnerability of households to job loss. What makes this study unique is the use of advanced analytical methods on comprehensive data that includes everyone in the population of Finland. By examining these dynamics, his work aims to inform public policies on mortgages and housing security, especially for economically disadvantaged groups who may tacitly accept not just a financial, but also a health risk, when pursuing mortgage-financed homeownership. Currently a Post Doc Researcher at the Medical University of Vienna and Post Doc Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, Dr. Bergers research areas are health economics, health policy and health inequality. His work focuses on the institutional causes behind disparities in health and healthcare utilisation and their implications for the financial sustainability and equity of healthcare systems. He will spend 12 months at the Max Planck University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health (MaxHel), leveraging extensive data on household debt, employment, homeownership, and health from the Finnish population. Collaborating with Prof. Pekka Martikainen, a leader in health inequalities research and director of the MaxHel, Dr. Berger aims to deepen the understanding of the connection between wealth and health.