What's Happening to the American Dream? Changes in the Transition to Home Ownership 1968-1997

Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Duke University

In this paper I examine changes in the likelihood of becoming a home owner over three decades. I organize my analysis around three questions. First, has the likelihood of becoming a home owner changed over this time period? Second, to the extent that the likelihood of becoming a home owner has declined, has the trend more pronounced among persons with lower education and among minorities? Third, to what extent are these changes due to changes in the relative affordability of housing, to changes in family composition, and to shifts in policy or macroeconomic context? Using data from the 1968-1997 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics merged with data characterizing local housing markets, I estimate a series of discrete time event history models to address these questions. My results support prior studies of trends in ownership rates which have shown increasing polarization in home ownership.