Is the worth of a college education declining vis-à-vis the transition into homeownership? A gender-differentiated analysis among young adults in Hong Kong from 1991 to 2016

Abstract

In recent decades homeownership among young adults has been declining on a global scale. While critics in Hong Kong have argued that the lack of access to affordable housing has fueled the discontent among young adults and contributed to the recent pro-democracy protesting, little is known about the social stratification process of transition into homeownership over time. Using six-wave census and by-census data from Hong Kong and cross-classified multilevel model (CCMM), we examine how education is associated with homeownership among young adults (ages 25-39) over a 25-year period, as well as to what extent this association could be differentiated by gender and marriage. Our results show that overall, college education facilitates the transition into homeownership in Hong Kong. At the same time, the relative advantages of college education vis-à-vis homeownership have increased, meaning that the gaps in homeownership across education groups have diverged over time. Despite the fact that the return of college education with respect to homeownership is smaller among women than among men, the advantages gained by women from a college education vis-à-vis homeownership have increased over time, in turn decreasing the gender gap in this respect over time. Marriage formation may address the deficits of lower education and facilitate women’s transition into homeownership, but this is not the case for men.