Racial Differences in Housing

Abstract

Changes and differences in housing quality for blacks and whites in the United States between 1960 and 1978 were examined using data from the Annual Housing Surveys for the years 1974 and 1978, and from the one-in-one-thousand sample Public Use File from the 1960 Census. There were substantial improvements in housing quality between 1960 and 1978. However, racial differences in housing quality, as measured by structural deficiency, crowding, and age of housing unit, persisted over the two decades regardless of socioeconomic status, family composition, and geographic regions. The data do not reveal substantial declines in racial disparity in housing over the two decades.