Cohort Estimation of Homeownership Attainment among Native-Born and Immigrant Populations

This article proposes a cohort method for modeling longitudinal changes in homeownership attainment. Theory underlying the method draws on two research traditions: labor economists' research on the economic mobility of immigrants and housing economists' research on homeownership over the life cycle.The modeling technique was applied to native-born, non-Hispanic whites, native-born Mexican Americans, and Mexican immigrants and was used to estimate trajectories of homeownership attainment by birth cohort and arrival cohort from 1980 to 1990. The results show that temporal factors such as cohort membership, aging, and duration of U.S. residence are strong predictors of homeownership attainment. The results also show that the adjusted homeownership trajectories of younger native-born, non-Hispanic whites and Mexican Americans lag behind those of older cohorts.