American Dream Delayed : Shifting Determinants of Homeownership

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model of discrete choice for labor supply, fertility and transition from tenant to homeowner, to investigate the secular decline in homeownership over the past several decades, wholly attributable to households postponing the purchase of their first home. House prices only partly explain the decline; higher base level wages led to lower fertility also contributing to the decline, because households with children are more likely to own a home than those without. Somewhat surprisingly we find higher levels of female education ameliorated this trend, highly educated women placing greater value on homeownership