How Has Homeownership Changed?: Racial Inequality and the Determinants of Homeownership Transitions 1968-2005

Vanesa Estrada, RAND

This paper investigates the ways in which homeownership had changed for Americans since 1968 and the implication of these changes for racial inequality using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I examine cohort change in the determinants of transitions in and out of homeownership with event history models. I found that after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics, racial inequalities for the transition into ownership have diminished across cohorts. I also find that there has been substantial growth in the effect of race for transitions from ownership back to renting, even after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics. Thus, ownership loss has emerged here as a larger and more pressing problem than previous scholars have noted. Event history models are then used to predict transition probabilities which are the basis of a series of simulations with multi-state life tables to investigate the potential effect of future policy or population change.