Last time, I looked at differences in home ownership between older and younger folks between 1960 and 2018. Briefly, it looks like home ownership, one of the big anchors of membership in mainstream middle+ class society, is growing increasingly stratified across generational lines.

Why is this trend occurring? I speculated that two factors could contribute to these changes: racial and educational compositions of generations.

For example: social scientists have demonstrated the vast social, economic, political, micro-, meso-, and macro-level factors that make access to home ownership unequal across racial and ethnic groups. With younger generations more racially and ethnically diverse, perhaps these barriers are more consequential in driving trends. That is, trends may look more flat when looking within racial and ethnic groups. The trend lines for overall generations may be due to changes in the compositional makeup of generations.

Let’s start by comparing generational home ownership differences among nonhispanic white and black populations (this is already going to be a tad long, so other racial and ethnic group trends will have to wait for another day). Like last time, I’m using Census and American Community Survey data of non-institutionalized populations, looking at year specific groups aged 25-35 and 45+ to roughly proxy younger and older folks.

Unsurprisingly, the y-axes are, by far, the biggest story. Middle-aged black folks have home ownership rates similar to those of young white folks. Sociologists and demographers are all over the massive racial and ethnic inequalities associated with housing. South and Crowder’s Cycles of Segreation is a great recent book on the topic.

But we also see different trends in generational gaps between white and black populations:

The generational gap in home ownership among white folks has consistently grown over time, from a difference of 0.1 in 1960 to over .25 in recent years.
In contrast, the generational gap for black folks had a single big growth in the 1980s, but has otherwise been pretty flat. This appears to be the case because there simply hasn’t been a lot of upward action in the rate of home ownership among black folks, regardless of age, since 1980. The only trend that’s notable was a decline in home ownership among both older and younger black folks following the Financial crisis of 2008.
The size of the generational difference is now pretty similar between white and black folks. Before, it was about twice as large for black folks.
The overall trend lines show that the Great Recession was pretty bad for everyone, except older white folks, who were overall able to maintain high home ownership rates.

Let’s compare young white and black rates over time:

There’s a slight converge in the substantial gap between younger white and black folks between 1960 and 1980, with the difference in home owner percentages declining from about 0.3 to about 0.225. In the 2000s and onward, there was some volatility in the difference between years, but nothing to write home about.

How about older folks?

Well, here we see the two groups pulling apart in recent years. Older white folks are becoming increasingly likely to own homes compared to older black folks. Whereas the gap was about 0.18 in 1980, it has grown pretty steadily to about 0.25 by 2018. So, we now see homeownership gaps between older white and black folks that are about the same magnitude as the homeownership gaps among younger white and black folks.

So what does this all suggest?

The generational gap is growing among white folks, presenting a new and unusual generational divide among a group that has tended to have greater access to society’s valued resources. In contrast, there has been a consistent and large generational gap in homeownership among black folks.
There was a slight decline in the racial disparity between younger white and black folks, but this largely stagnated in the last 25 years or so. In contrast, the disparity among older folks has grown in the last 30 years.
These results run against the expectations I brought in. I thought that perhaps younger white folks were maintaining privilege compared to past generations, and that the aggregate decline was due to a more diverse younger generation. Instead, we see a consistent disadvantage faced by younger and older black folks, and a separation between older and younger white folks. Perhaps this is why housing costs, discussions of stunted adulthood, renting, etc. is so prominent in discussions about Millenials — these disadvantages are now more prominent among a traditionally more privileged group, making it more noteworthy and resonant among folks who typically have hold over national discussions.
- BUT — let’s not lose sight of the massive racial gaps. Young white folks today are having a tough time…but…their home ownership rates have now dropped to rates of older, and presumably more established in their careers, black folks! That’s a clear indicator of the massive racial inequalities that perpetuate across generations.