Beyond Shelter: Housing Tenure, Food Security, and Basic Needs Among Refugee Women In Jordan during COVID-19

Purpose:
The COVID-19 pandemic intensified preexisting structural vulnerabilities among refugee women in Jordan, particularly in relation to housing insecurity, food deprivation, debt, and limited access to basic needs. Yet, shelter, food, and health are often examined separately in humanitarian research. This study examined whether accommodation type functions as a structural indicator of housing security and household well-being among refugee women in Jordan during the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular attention to food access, debt accumulation, physical illness, and basic needs fulfillment.

Methods:
This study used cross-sectional survey data collected in 2022 from 548 refugee women living in refugee camps and peri-urban settlements in Jordan, most of whom were widowed caregivers of orphaned children. A mixed methods design integrated quantitative indicators of housing, food access, and economic hardship with qualitative responses regarding major household problems. Quantitative analyses included chi-square tests, one-way analysis of variance, linear and logistic regression, to assess the relationships among accommodation type, meals per day, debt, and basic needs capacity. Qualitative responses were coded thematically and compared with statistical patterns across strands.

Results:
Overall, 85.2% of participants reported increased debt during the pandemic, 74.8% reported consuming fewer than three meals per day, and 50.2% reported being unable or only minimally able to meet basic household needs. Housing security emerged as a significant structural predictor of basic needs capacity, F(4,525) = 15.78, p < .001, η² = .107, with homeowners reporting the most favorable outcomes (M = 3.61, SD = 0.89) and women living in campgrounds with rental support reporting the lowest (M = 2.19, SD = 0.77). Meals per day also functioned as a strong proxy for household well-being, showing the strongest bivariate association with basic needs capacity, χ²(8) = 129.81, p < .001, Cramér’s V = .345, and a significant regression effect, B = 0.532, p < .001. Logistic regression further showed that each one-unit increase in basic needs capacity reduced the odds of debt accumulation by 59.2% (OR = 0.408, p < .001), while humanitarian aid receipt did not significantly reduce debt odds (OR = 0.815, p = .447). Physical illness also followed the housing gradient, ranging from 13.0% among homeowners to 38.8% among tenants. Only 5.9% of respondents identified food as a primary concern in open-ended responses.

Conclusions and Implications:
The findings indicate that housing security functions as a structural determinant of food security, debt vulnerability, and family well-being among refugee women in Jordan. The study contributes to social work and humanitarian research policy by demonstrating how housing conditions shape everyday survival outcomes and by showing that simple indicators such as meals per day can serve as powerful proxies for household deprivation. The discrepancy between objective food insecurity and women’s subjective ranking of problems further suggests that chronic deprivation may become normalized and underreported. These findings support housing-first humanitarian interventions, more integrated assessments of food and material hardship, and stronger attention to transfer adequacy in aid programming. It underscores the importance of addressing poverty, housing, and deprivation as structural justice issues rather than isolated individual hardships.