In the last part of this series, I showed how (1) massive racial disparities existed between white and black groups regarding home ownership (2) large intergenerational gaps in home ownership were consistently found among black folks, without too much action over time and (3) an intergenerational gap among white folks grew substantially over time to nearly the same size as found among black folks.
Of course, race and ethnicity isn’t just defined by black and white populations, especially among the recent birth cohorts of an increasingly diverse US population. What is going on among Hispanic/Spanish/Latino (henceforth described as “Hispanic,” following IPUMS) and Asian groups (both of which are of course categories that contain very large and diverse populations, but for now, that’s bracketed).
Below are generational patterns of home ownership among Hispanic populations, among older (pink line) and younger (blue line) folks.
Hmm, a few things to note:
Overall levels look pretty similar to those among black folks. Hispanic folks have much lower home ownership rates than white folks. Not surprising, but again, racial/ethnic inequality is a very real and important thing.
Trends up until about 2012 look very similar to those found among the black sample from the last blog post: not a lot of action over time except for a single jump in the 1980s.
From about 2012 onward, we see a distinct pattern from either white or black samples from the last post: there has been a slight uptick among younger folks in home ownership, leading to a decline in the generation gap from about 0.24 to about 0.20. Of course, this declines to a level that’s been high and stable from around 1990 to the present day. But this is a somewhat surprising divergence.
What about the Asian population?
Good and bad news.
Older Asian populations have grown in home ownership over time, from about 0.5 (lower than Hispanic home ownership rates, similar to black rates) in 1960 to about 0.75 today. While still lower than non-Hispanic white rates today,, this is the closest an older group has gotten to older non-Hispanic whites.
Young Asian home ownership remained relatively flat through 2000. It grew substantially through the 2000s, up almost 10 percentage points, then crashed to 2000 levels following the Great Recession.
Combined, these trends result in a growing generational gap in home ownership among Asian folks resembling the trend found among non-Hispanic white folks. There was a massive growth in the intergenerational gap of home ownership, driven by older Asian folks attaining home ownership.
So how do the generational gap trends compare across racial and ethnic groups? The bottom figure plots the generation gap trends separately by non-Hispanic white, black, Hispanic, and Asian groups.
There’s been growth in the generation gap across all groups. The magnitude varies, but the growth over time is pretty consistent.
The growth of the generational gap was highest among non-Hispanic white and Asian folks. These higher rates of growth led to convergence of generational gaps across racial categories in the present era. That is, non-Hispanic white and Asian folks “caught up” with black and Hispanic folks regarding intergenerational gaps in home ownership.
The decline of the Hispanic generational gap in the last few years is distinct from just about everything else going on in the figure. I’m not an expert, but this is somewhat surprising to me and is something I’d like to look into.
I’m curious how comparable Asian and Hispanic trends are across this time period. My understanding is that these populations have changed substantially along a number of different dimensions over time. I’m not totally convinced that maintaining these general definitions over this time is optimal.
It’d be interesting to see how much of these trends are determined by the geography of housing. For example, I think that Hispanic folks have higher likelihoods of migration to rural / smaller areas. My prior is that much of levels in home ownership is based in discriminatory racial/ethic practices. But how much of growing generational gaps is because of discrimination, and how much is due to the explosion of housing costs in different parts of the US?
It’s important to remember that these figures represent trends in differences. Levels are removed. Focusing on levels would show continued advantages of home ownership among non-Hispanic white folks, both older and younger, compared to all other groups. A convergence in generational inequality doesn’t remove this co-existing inequality. And in many ways, these differences of levels are the story. The importance of intergenerational inequalities sit below these larger racial and ethnic inequalities.
These findings really cut against my expectations. I thought there’s be within-racial/ethnic group stability in generational differences. Instead, we’re seeing a convergence in large generational gaps. So today, not only are there massive inequalities between racial categories in home ownership and all the ensuing benefits, but there are also now massive generational inequalities within each racial category. Two thoughts on this:
Perhaps generational gaps in owning a home are now newsworthy because, in contrast to the past, large generational gaps are no longer primarily concentrated among people of color. My preexisting beliefs lead me to assume that the growth of generational inequalities in a more powerful group increases the likelihood of it being newsworthy.
What will the weird combination of differences in levels but similarities in trends do to things like social solidarity among younger generations? Will younger folks of different racial and ethnic groups see each other in the same fundamental boat because all seem to be losing out on a main mainstream pillar of wealth and adulthood establishment? Or will the still-existing large differences in levels of home ownership make any attempt of intragenerational solidarity stink of BS?