Housing Inequality in the United States: Explaining the White-Minority Disparities in Homeownership

As the homeownership rate in the United States reached its highest ever level in 2004, the distribution of homeownership remained uneven along racial and ethnic lines. Using data from the 2005–2007 3-Year Sample of the American Community Survey (ACS), this paper employs a multivariate regression model and a decomposition technique to delineate the socio-economic and demographic characteristics as well as the immigration and spatial patterns that shape racial and ethnic inequality in homeownership. The findings reveal three distinct patterns; the Asian-white homeownership gap is explained entirely by differences in immigration and spatial patterns of residence, whereas the disadvantage of blacks and Puerto Ricans is attributable to demographic, socio-economic and unobserved factors. For Mexicans and other Hispanics, all four sources influence homeownership patterns, with socio-economic factors relatively important for Mexicans and spatial variables relatively important for other Hispanics.