Homeownership Attainment Research Articles

Do I Buy with a Little Help from My Friends? Homeownership-Relevant Group Characteristics and Homeownership Disparities among Canadian Immigrant Groups, 1971–2001

Using the 1971–2001 census of Canada master files, in this paper it is shown how employment in banking/finance, construction and real estate, and living in multiple family households reduces unexplained homeownership disparities between groups in Canada's seven largest immigrant-intake Census Metropolitan Areas. Although these characteristics are important at times for homeownership attainment, they do not elicit a persistent effect across the study period.

What If Immigrants Had Not Migrated?

Abstract. Despite strong theoretical arguments and models about international migration, very few empirical studies rigorously test these arguments and models. The purpose of the present study is to analyze determinants and consequences for international migration, focusing particularly on the returns to post‐hoc international migration. The present study compares residential well‐being of Korean international migrants in the United States with that of their hypothetical well‐being if they had not migrated. Our suggested models of the selectivity corrected returns to various characteristics for immigrants and nonimmigrants enable us to estimate the “opportunity well‐being” of individuals and households; that is, the well‐being of immigrants‐had‐they‐stayed and of nonimmigrants‐if‐they‐had‐immigrated. The data for our analyses are drawn from the 1990 Korea Census Data and the Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) of the 1990 U.S. Census. In either case of migrants‐had‐they‐stayed or of nonimmigrants‐had‐they‐migrated, international migration to the United States has a significant and positive effect on the probability of homeownership, especially for women. The results show that the predicted probability of homeownership attainment increases as a result of migration by 15 percent to 16 percent for women and by 8 percent for men. The study concludes that migrating to the United States offers better opportunities for homeownership than staying in Korea does, particularly for women.

Housing Tenure Choice of Taiwanese Immigrants: A Different Path to Residential Assimilation

Traditional assimilation theory predicts immigrant adaptation into society as a function of catching up to status of U.S.-born non-Hispanic white households. Recent Taiwanese immigrants, rather than climbing socioeconomic ladders overtime, may have surpassed the socioeconomic status of whites soon after arrivals, as measured by their homeownership attainment (Painter, Yang, and Yu 2003). This paper extends this research and specifically examines Taiwanese immigrants' high homeownership attainment. It reveals that (1) compared with native-born whites, all Chinese subgroups have higher predicted homeownership rates; (2) homeownership gaps between Taiwanese and other Chinese immigrants are quite large among newcomers, converging somewhat over time; (3) Taiwanese, who contributed to the surge in homeownership during the 1980s, were more likely to be young, highly educated, and new immigrant households with incomes lower than the median level; and (4) Taiwanese stand in contrast to other immigrants as English proficiency, an indicator of assimilation, does not play a significant role in their homeownership attainment. These outcomes may be an aggregate effect of a large influx of well-off Taiwanese, family support, and cultural affinity for homeownership. Further research is necessary on factors such as locational choice and informal resources in immigrants' tenure choice.

Local housing-market effects on tenure choice

The main objective of thepresent study is to find out which marketfactors affect homeownership attainment aftercontrolling for individual human capital. The1980 and 1990 individual Census data (PUMS) inthe U.S. are used to investigate the contextualinfluences on choosing two types of housing:single- and multi-family housing. Trichotomoustenure choice models are applied to fourrepresentative age groups. The study takesadvantage of the multi-level design, allowingrelationships between individual and housingmarket characteristics to vary from place toplace. One finding is that market variations aswell as individual characteristics affecttenure choices. The authors argue that researchon homeownership attainment should not onlyconsider individual or household attributes butshould be sensitive to spatiality thatrecognizes market effects. The conclusion isthat housing research needs to be comprehensiveenough to understand the complex interactionbetween the individual's human capital and themetropolitan housing-market characteristics.

The Role of Occupational Achievement in Homeownership Attainment by Immigrants and Native Borns in Five Metropolitan Areas

This article addresses the homeownership attainment of immigrants and native borns in five metropolitanareas: Los Angeles; New York; Washington, DC; Atlanta; and Philadelphia. The major questionfor analysis is the role of occupational achievement in shaping the attainment of homeownership forspecific cohorts between 1980 and 1990. This effect is estimated in addition to that of human capitalendowments, life cycle maturation, lengthening duration of U.S. residence, and earnings.We find that occupational achievement makes a significant contribution to homeownershipattainment,net of other factors, and that this effect is remarkably consistent across metropolitan areas, immigrantgroups, and birth cohorts. The analysis also unveils substantial differences in ownership trends betweenmetropolitan regions. Although immigrant groups attain lower levels of homeownership thannon-Hispanic whites who are native born, the rate of progress toward homeownership for immigrantsgenerally parallels that for young whites in the same metropolitan area.

Cohort Estimation of Homeownership Attainment among Native-Born and Immigrant Populations

This article proposes a cohort method for modeling longitudinal changes in homeownership attainment.Theory underlying the method draws on two research traditions: labor economists' research onthe economic mobility of immigrants and housing economists' research on homeownership over thelife cycle.The modeling technique was applied to native-born, non-Hispanic whites, native-born Mexican Americans,and Mexican immigrants and was used to estimate trajectories of homeownership attainmentby birth cohort and arrival cohort from 1980 to 1990. The results show that temporal factors such ascohort membership, aging, and duration of U.S. residence are strong predictors of homeownershipattainment. The results also show that the adjusted homeownership trajectories of younger native-born,non-Hispanic whites and Mexican Americans lag behind those of older cohorts.

Reliance Upon Wives' Earnings for Homeownership Attainment: Caught Between the Locomotive and the Caboose

In recent years a fresh awareness has emerged that demographic trends wield an impact on housing markets independent of the income effects on which most eco nomic models focus (Alonso 1980) Dra matic social changes occurred during the 1970s Perhaps the best recognized factor impacting housing markets was the emer gence of the baby boom generation into adulthood and the consequent surge in household formations In addition to this shift in age structure, the accelerated entry of women into the labor force represents one of the most dramatic social changes of this century (Smith 1979) Despite the general significance of these social changes, little recognition has been given to the relationships working women of the baby boom generation have established with the housing market. This article will focus on the relationship between employ ment by young married women and home buying