Homeownership trends among the never married

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, the population of unmarried single adults has grown globally especially in the developed world. In this paper, we explore homeownership among never married singles in the US from 2000 to 2013 using a sample from the Current Population Survey. In particular, we investigate potential differences in the relationship between several homeownership determinants for the never married in comparison to the married. We also test for heterogeneous effects across education levels and ethnicity in homeownership determinants for the never married. Our results show that age, gender and number of children affect the probability of homeownership differently for singles compared to those who are married. We also find that while on average there is a higher probability of homeownership from 2007 onwards for singles, there are significant gender, education and racial differences. In particular, our results show that among the never married, those with at least a college education reverse the gender gap in homeownership.