Causal Effects of Public Rental Housing on Housing Satisfaction and Insecurity

This study estimated the causal effects of public rental housing on housing satisfaction and housing insecurity. Since entry into public rental housing is determined through a self-selection process closely associated with household characteristics such as income, age, and welfare recipiency, simple comparisons are likely to suffer from selection bias. To address this issue, we applied propensity score matching using three years of pooled microdata (2022–2024) from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Korea Housing Survey. The final sample constituted 38,834 renter households. The results indicated that public rental housing residency significantly improves both overall housing satisfaction and residential environment satisfaction, while meaningfully reducing anxiety over rent increases, deposit non-returns, and the housing cost burden. Notably, the magnitude of the effect on housing insecurity reduction was greater than that of housing satisfaction improvement, suggesting that public rental housing plays a more prominent role in securing residential stability than in improving physical housing quality. The findings were robust across a range of alternative matching specifications. Heterogeneous effect analyses by income tercile revealed that the effect on housing satisfaction was larger among relatively low- and middle-income renter households, whereas the effect on housing insecurity reduction was more pronounced among middle- and higher-income renter households. These findings suggest that public rental housing generates multidimensional benefits beyond the mere provision of housing, encompassing both enhanced residential stability and reduced economic burden. Furthermore, the heterogeneous effects across income groups imply that future public rental housing policies should adopt differentiated approaches that reflect the distinct needs of each target group.