The spatial dynamics of stratification: Metropolitan context, population redistribution, and black and Hispanic homeownership

Racial and ethnic inequality in homeownership remains stubbornly wide, even net of differences across groups in household-level sociodemographic characteristics. This article investigates the role of contextual forces in structuring disparate access to homeownership among minorities. Specifically, I combine household- and metropolitan-level census data to assess the impact of metropolitan housing stock, minority composition, and residential segregation on black and Hispanic housing tenure. The measure of minority composition combines both the size and rate of growth of the coethnic population to assess the impact on homeownership inequality of recent trends in population redistribution, particularly the increase in black migration to the South and dramatic dispersal of Hispanics outside traditional areas of settlement. Results indicate remarkable similarity between blacks and Hispanics with respect to the spatial and contextual influences on homeownership. For both groups, homeownership is higher and inequality with whites is smaller in metropolitan areas with an established coethnic base and in areas in which their group is less residentially segregated. Implications of recent trends in population redistribution for the future of minority homeownership are discussed.     

Immigration,ethnicity, and housing—Success hierarchies in Israel

The study assesses housing hierarchies among immigrants in Israel by investigating three different but complementary paths: homeownership, crowding, and access to housing goods. Data from the most recent Israeli census in 1995 (the 20% version file) allows us to classify the immigrant population by 46 countries or areas of origin, each meeting the criterion of having a minimum of 100 sample cases. I controlled for several confounding factors: immigration characteristics, community of residence, demographic and human-capital variables, household composition, and housing characteristics. The results of multivariate analyses suggest that membership in approximately half of the immigrant groups has a statistically significant effect on homeownership. Representing very different origin groups from developing countries in Asia and Africa, as well as developed areas in Western Europe and America, most of the effects are negative relative to the reference group of Polish Jews. The pace of home acquisition is fastest among immigrants from several former Soviet republics and slowest among Syrian and Ethiopian Israelis. A better ethnic hierarchy was found for the other two characteristics, crowding and housing goods, with immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe being at a disadvantage. Many of these gaps close as immigrants purchase housing and gain tenure in Israel. The pace of advancement, however, is not uniform. I speculate that the differences in pace reflect structural characteristics, cultural background, and immigration processes, as well as absorption policy, which were not fully indexed by the census data. The discussion addresses broader implications of the findings for ethnic differences and social stratification in immigration countries.     

Racial inequalities in housing: An examiation of recent trends

Changes in racial differences in homeownership and objective indicators of housing quality are examined using 1960 Census data and 1977 Annual Housing Survey data. Blacks, net of differences in socioeconomic status, family composition, and regional-metropolitan location, remained less likely than whites to own homes and somewhat more likely to live in older, crowded and structurally inadequate units in 1977. In general, however, net effects for race were much smaller in 1977 than in 1960. Racial differences in homeownership and crowding were smaller among recent movers than among the total sample in 1977, suggesting continued but gradual improvement in housing conditions for blacks in the latter 1970s.     

Residential Segregation, Nativity Status, and Hispanic Living Arrangements in Later Life

This study examined the relationship between residential segregation in metropolitan areas and the living arrangements of middle-aged and older Hispanics. We specifically considered whether the relationship between residential segregation and living arrangements was different depending on nativity status. This study also explored whether measures of assimilation were related to living arrangements. Using data from the 2000 Census Public-Use Microdata Sample (5 %), our multilevel logistic regression models showed that residing in metropolitan areas with higher residential segregation indexes of evenness, isolation, and clustering was related to an increased likelihood of living in a co-resident household versus an independent household. We discovered that the relationship was in the same direction for US-born and foreign-born Hispanics but the relationship was stronger for US-born Hispanics. Finally, we found that as assimilation increased, so did the likelihood of living independently and that persons living in the ten largest immigrant gateway cities were most likely to co-reside as compared to live independently. These results underscored the importance of developing theoretic models of ethnic group living arrangements that include characteristics of both individuals and the community.     

Making a place in the metropolis: Locational attainment in cities and suburbs

What accounts for the differences in the kinds of communities within the metropolis in which members of different racial and ethnic groups live? Do socioeconomic advancement and acculturation provide greater integration with whites or access to more desirable locations for minority-group members? Are these effects the same for Asians or Hispanics as for blacks? Does suburbanization offer a step toward greater equality in the housing market, or do minorities find greater discrimination in the suburban housing market? Data from 1980 for five large metropolitan regions are used to estimate "locational-attainment models, " which evaluate the effects of group members’ individual attributes on two measures of the character of their living environment: the socioeconomic standing (median household income) and racial composition (proportion non-Hispanic white) of the census tract where they reside. Separate models predict these outcomes for whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Net of the effects of individuals’ background characteristics, whites live in census tracts with the highest average proportion of white residents and the highest median household income. They are followed by Asians and Hispanics, and-at substantially lower levels-blacks. Large overall differences exist between city and suburban locations; yet the gap between whites and others is consistently lower in the suburbs than in the cities of these five metropolitan regions.     

From Rags to Riches? Immigration and Poverty in Spain

This article for first time explores the relationship between immigration and poverty in Spain. Using recent Spanish household surveys, it is found, first, that both moderate and severe poverty are more acute among immigrants than among nationals and social transfers play no substantial role in reducing monetary deprivation in the case of foreign-born population; in the second place, we perform an econometric analysis that shows that the different poverty risk faced by local and immigrant households is not driven by differences in basic household and demographic characteristics.     

A cohort-based indicator of housing progress

Measuring housing quality has continued to be an elusive task. This article proposes a new social indicator of housing quality that builds on three conceptual decisions. The first step is to define an indicator that measures quality with reference to a standard that households are striving to attain. Single-family homeownership is a standard of housing sought by nine-tenths of Americans under age 45. A second decision is to measure quality not according to absolute attainment of this standard, but rather with reference to the aggregate experience of progress toward attaining the standard. Under this experiential definition, quality is assumed to be high when the average individual moves quickly toward homeownership. The third conceptual decision is to aggregate individuals' progress toward homeownership by measuring the trajectory of cohorts into homeownership. The indicator of housing progress is thus a vector of age-specific ownership rates. Twentieth-century cohorts are compared on this indicator and the implication of differences among them are discussed.Research underlying this article was supported by a Charles Abrams Fellowship awarded by the MIT-Harvard Joint Center for Urban Studies. This article is a revision of a paper presented at the 1981 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, Washington D.C.     

Housing Cost Burden and New Lawful Immigrants in the United States

Housing in the United States constitutes the largest expenditure for many households. Increasing rents and home prices, changes in the mortgage industry, and the growing importance of immigrants in the U.S. housing market underscore the value of examining the economic hardship that housing costs pose for immigrants. As is true for the native-born, immigrants’ allocation of financial resources to housing influences the funds available for savings, investments, survival of emergencies, and the overall economic well-being of children and families. This project employs 2003 national-level data of legal permanent residents from the New Immigrant Survey to examine an outcome lacking sufficient empirical study: the proportion of household income spent on housing. The study examines whether disparities in immigrant housing cost burden by country/region of origin persist after accounting for differences in human capital, stage in the life cycle, assimilation, and other factors. The analyses disaggregate immigrants from Latin America, Asia, Europe and other areas into more nuanced categories. The results document that after controlling for a diverse array of variables, legal immigrants vary widely in housing cost burdens by country/region of origin. These disparities have implications for the future wealth accumulation and long-term financial security of immigrants in the United States.     

Housing and wealth inequality: Racial-ethnic differences in home equity in the United States

In our study, we took a first step toward broadening our understanding of the sources of both housing and wealth inequality by studying differences in housing equity among blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and non-Hispanic whites in the United States. Using data from the American Housing Survey, we found substantial and significant gaps in housing equity for blacks and Hispanics (but not for Asians) compared with whites, even after we controlled for a wide range of locational, life-cycle, socioeconomic, family, immigrant, and mortgage characteristics. Furthermore, the payoffs to many factors are notably weaker for minority than for white households. This finding is especially consistent across groups for the effects of age, socioeconomic status, and housing-market value. Blacks and Hispanics also uniformly receive less benefit from mortgage and housing characteristics than do whites. These findings lend credence to the burgeoning stratification perspective on wealth and housing inequality that acknowledges the importance of broader social and institutional processes of racial-ethnic stratification that advantage some groups, whites in this case, over others.     

Intergenerational fertility among hispanic women: New evidence of immigrant assimilation

In recent decades, rapid growth of the U.S. Hispanic population has raised concerns about immigrant adaptation, including fertility. Empirical research suggests that Hispanics, especially Mexicans, might not be following the historical European pattern of rapid intergenerational fertility decline (and convergence toward native levels). If confirmed, continued high Hispanic fertility could indicate a broader lack of assimilation into mainstream American society. In this paper, we reexamine the issue of Hispanic and Mexican fertility using an approach that combines biological and immigrant generations to more closely approximate a comparison of immigrant women with those of their daughters’ and granddaughters’ generation. Contrary to cross-sectional results, our new analyses show that Hispanic and Mexican fertility is converging with that of whites, and that it is similarly responsive to period conditions and to women’s level of education. In addition, we employ a mathematical simulation to illustrate the conditions under which cross-sectional analyses can produce misleading results. Finally, we discuss the import of the fertility convergence we document for debates about immigrant assimilation.     

Impacts of Homeownership and Residential Stability on Children’s Academic Performance in Hong Kong

While purchasing a home is usually made by the parents, the impact of homeownership on children, especially younger children who spend much more time in the home environment than other members of the family, should not be overlooked. In this paper, we assess the impact of both homeownership and residential stability by measuring how these factors affect children’s academic performance at school. Based on a three-stage six-model analytical framework, the analysis shows that homeownership has a positive impact on school performance of children. More interestingly, frequent moving is detrimental to school performance while parents’ higher educational background may compensate for the lack of homeownership in renter families. This paper presents a number of issues for consideration of long term land and housing policies including the importance of promoting homeownership through steady supply of residential land, as well as targeting public housing welfare to different household groups with different measures.     

Household structure and housing needs

This paper is mainly derived from the material presented in the preceding article by S. P. Brown. Indeed, while the previous analysis is of considerable intrinsic interest, the hypothetical population was constructed and its family distribution was shown for the purpose of providing a basis for estimates of housing needs. For several reasons it appeared to be essential to have such a basis. First, any housing programme has to take the future, as well as the present, distribution of households by type and size into account. Secondly, such a programme has to be designed so as not to prevent household formation—there should be dwellings for all potential households, so that involuntary doubling-up need not occur. Thirdly, most residential areas should have dwellings for an eventually stable population, that is, for one which has variety of age groups and of household types, and also fair stability of housing demand. Estimates of the distribution of potential ‘households’ could be derived from the ‘family’ distribution of the hypothetical population which reflects current demographic trends. Thus although this population is a ‘hypothetical’ one, it provides a realistic premise for considering housing needs, and because it is a ‘stationary’ one, it provides an especially suitable premise. Moreover, since the demographic characteristics of its ‘families’ and therefore of its potential households were established in far greater detail than has ever been the case in sample surveys of existing households, it was possible to classify households in the terms which appear to be most appropriate for the first draft of a housing programme, irrespective of social and economic variations in demand.

The first stage in following up Mr Brown's analysis was the conversion of ‘families’ into ‘households’. Two examples of the possible household distribution of the hypothetical population are presented. Example A, which gives a realistic, but not extreme, picture of the conversion of families into households, is used for the subsequent detailed analysis, while broader figures for distribution B are also included.

In the second stage the various types of household had to be distinguished. For estimating housing needs, two interrelated criteria of household classification are relevant—first, the stage in the life of a household, especially appropriate in considering space requirements; secondly, the age composition of households, which largely determines the type of dwelling needed.

The detailed distribution of households by size and type, based on this classification, is further translated into a distribution of dwellings by type and size. For this purpose, additional assumptions about the number of rooms and the type of dwelling needed by households of various types are introduced and applied to the hypothetical population, both to household distributions A and B. These assumptions are not based on accepted standards, nor do they suggest standards. They are merely used for the purpose of illustrating a possible method of estimating housing needs on the basis of a detailed picture of household structure. They are further designed to represent one possible compromise between economy in dwelling distribution, on the one hand, and flexibility of space for individual households, on the other.

In the final sections of the paper, the implications of the dwelling distributions here presented are discussed in relation to household mobility, and also with reference to the necessity for reconciling short-term and long-term housing needs in any housing programme.     

How much does income matter in neighborhood choice?

There is a substantial literature on the residential mobility process itself and a smaller contribution on how households make neighborhood choices, especially with respect to racial composition. We extend that literature by evaluating the role of income and socioeconomic status in the neighborhood choice process for minorities. We use individual household data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study to investigate the comparative choices of white and Hispanic households in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. We show that income and education are important explanations for the likelihood of choosing neighborhoods. But at the same time, own race preferences clearly play a role. While whites with more income choose more white neighborhoods, Hispanics with more income choose less Hispanic neighborhoods. One interpretation is that both groups are translating resources, such as income and education, into residence in whiter and ostensibly, higher status neighborhoods.

Differences in the locational attainment of immigrant and native-born households with children in New York City

In this paper we use a data set created especially for New York City to evaluate whether the locational attainment of households with children, as indicated by the context of the neighborhoods in which they live, varies by their immigrant status. In addition, we evaluate whether the relationship between immigrant status and neighborhood conditions varies by the householder's race/ethnicity. Overall, when compared with native-born households with children, immigrant households with children live in neighborhoods of lower quality, characterized by higher teenage fertility rates and higher percentages of students in local schools scoring below grade level in math and of persons receiving AFDC, but lower rates of juvenile detention. Further analyses, however, revealed that race/ethnicity is far more potent than immigrant status per se in predicting where households with children live.     

Social programs and household size: evidence from New York city

What determines how many adults live in a house? How do people divide themselves up among households? Average household sizes vary substantially, both over time and in the cross-section. In this paper, we describe how a variety of government policies affect living arrangements, intentionally or not. Using data from a survey of households in New York City, we find that these incentives appear to have an impact. Specifically, households receiving these housing and income subsidies are smaller on average (measured by number of adults). The impacts appear to be considerably larger than those that would occur if the programs were lump-sum transfers. Small average household size can be extremely expensive in terms of physical and environmental resources, higher rents, and possibly homelessness. Thus, we encourage policymakers to pay greater heed to the provisions built into various social policies that favor smaller households.     

Hispanic Immigrant Poverty: Does Ethnic Origin Matter?

Hispanic immigrant poverty is nearly double that of other immigrants. Furthermore, poverty rates among Hispanic families differ substantially by ethnicity. This paper analyzes poverty rates for Hispanic and non-Hispanic immigrants, and also for individual Hispanic ethnic groups, to determine the relative importance of different covariates of poverty. The general conclusion is that low levels of education and fluency in English contribute to high Hispanic poverty rates and are also contributing factors to differences in poverty among Hispanic ethnic groups. In particular, the high poverty rate of Mexican immigrant households is associated with the low educational attainments of household heads, along with a relatively large number of children, relatively low English fluency and a relatively short tenure in the U.S. Immigrants from Guatemala and El Salvador have substantially lower poverty rates than Mexican immigrants despite a similar constellation of observable traits. Immigrants from South America have low poverty rates, largely due to strong family work effort and high educational attainments. The relatively low family work effort and high incidence of single parent families among Puerto Ricans overpowers the beneficial effects of higher rates of citizenship and English fluency.

The residential segregation of mixed-nativity married couples

This article examines the ways in which mixed-nativity marriage is related to spatial assimilation in metropolitan areas of the United States. Specifically, we examine the residential patterns of households with a mixed-nativity—and, in some cases, interracial—marriage to determine whether they are less segregated from the native-born than entirely foreign-born households. Using restricted-use data from the 2000 census, we find that compared with couples in which both spouses are foreign-born, mixed-nativity couples tend to be less segregated from various native-born racial and ethnic groups. Further, among both foreign-born Asians and Hispanics, those with a native-born non-Hispanic white spouse are considerably less segregated from native-born white households than from other foreign-born Asian and Hispanic households. We also find that even though nativity status matters for black couples in a manner consistent with assimilation theory, foreign-born and mixed-nativity black households still each display very high levels of segregation from all other native-born racial/ethnic groups, reaffirming the power of race in determining residential patterns. Overall, our findings provide moderate support for spatial assimilation theory and suggest that cross-nativity marriages often facilitate the residential integration of the foreign-born.     

Housing Adjustment Among Immigrants in Israel: Application of Complementary Non-Metric and Metric Techniques

This study applies two different complementary statistical techniques to examine the structure and determinants of homeownership and consumption of household goods among immigrants in Israel. Findings from partial-order analysis (POSAC) reveal significant differences between immigrant groups by type, rather than level, of household characteristics. Suppliers of entertainment (television) and of information-communication (computer) are the items that most strongly distinguish between immigrants. The joint direction of the partially ordered space corresponds with home and car ownership. Immigrant groups are dispersed in different parts of the household typology; with increased duration of residence in Israel immigrants move, albeit in varied rhythms, toward improved housing conditions. A complementary logistic regression analysis, which controls for socio-demographic variation and detailed tenure in Israel, show a likelihood of convergence of immigrants from all origin countries with the core native-born group in owning a home. For other household goods, the findings largely coincide with the typology derived from POSAC. The findings are discussed in reference to three conceptual expectations of “cultural norms”, “adjustment”, and “structural-environmental considerations”.

Trajectories of Fertility and Household Composition in the Demographic Profile of the Czech Republic

The household composition matrix is a representation of the demographic structure of households, specific to age groups of household members and household heads. As such, the matrix reflects also the environmental conditions, housing in particular, that mould households' demographic structure. By specifically depicting the presence of children in households, household composition could be viewed as gauging fertility within the context of housing conditions. This stance is examined in an application to Czech census data for the year 1991, at the commencement of an intense process of socio-economic transformation that accompanied the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe. Within this process, housing had an inadvertent impact upon the structure of households in general, and upon fertility decline in particular. By using the standard matrix representation of household composition, correspondence between trajectories of age-specific fertility and household composition emerge throughout the Czech Republic. This correspondence illustrates the potential household composition analysis carries for fertility measurement and estimation in rapidly changing economic environments.     

Demographics and housing in America

Family-building needs of the "nesting" generation and its offspring, the baby boomers born 1947-1964, dominated post-World War 2 housing demand and production to 1970. Centered on tract-house suburbia, annual housing starts averaged 1.5 million a year in the 1950s and 1960s. With growing real median family incomes, the average size of new dwellings increased and 63% of households owned their homes by 1970, compared to 44% in 1940. The baby boomers' arrival at the ages of household formation sparked the "Golden Housing Age" of the 1970s. Net household increase averaged a record 1.7 million a year and 19 million year-round dwellings were added to the national inventory compared to 11 million in the 1950s and 1960s, despite a plunge in housing starts during the 1974-75 recession. Real median family income declined after 1973 and inflation escalated housing costs but at the same time fueled demand for housing as an investment hedge against inflation. The singles and "mingles" life styles of youthful baby boomers boosted rental housing, condominiums, and compact townhouses. Married-couple households dropped from 74% of the total in 1960 to 58% in 1975. Household formation and housing starts dropped drastically with the 1980-82 recession but bounced back as the economy recovered in 1983-85 and restrained inflation braked housing cost rises. Projections show overall household increases reduced to barely a million a year in 1990-95, with renter household gains at just 175,000, compared to 1/2 a million a year in the 1970s, as the household-formation ages of 18-34 are taken over by the baby bust generation. This will be offset by the baby boomers' maturing into middle age. By 1995 most of the giant generation will be in the peak-earning, high-homeownership ages of 35-54. Married-couple households in this age bracket will account for 56% of the household gain from 1983 to 1995, boosting national affluence and the demand for upscale housing, likely to be located in the suburbs.