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Does home ownership vary by sexual orientation?

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  • Christopher Jepsen
  • Lisa K. Jepsen

Abstract

The housing literature considers whether the probability of owning a home is different for ethnic and racial minorities than for native whites. Most studies find that minorities are less likely to own a home than their white counterparts. A logical extension of this line of research is to consider whether home-ownership rates differ based on sexual orientation. We use data on couples from the 2000 Census and find that same-sex couples are less likely to own a home than are married couples. The average value of houses owned by same-sex male couples is statistically similar to the average value of houses owned by married couples, but houses owned by same-sex female and cohabiting couples have lower average values than those owned by married couples. Conditional on owning, same-sex couples are slightly less likely to have a mortgage compared to married couples.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Jepsen & Lisa K. Jepsen, 2009. "Does home ownership vary by sexual orientation?," Open Access publications 10197/4437, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:oapubs:10197/4437
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/4437
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    Cited by:

    1. Plantinga, Andrew J. & Détang-Dessendre, Cécile & Hunt, Gary L. & Piguet, Virginie, 2013. "Housing prices and inter-urban migration," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 296-306.
    2. Noah Uhrig, S.C., 2014. "An examination of poverty and sexual orientation in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2014-02, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    3. Negrusa, Brighita & Oreffice, Sonia, 2010. "Sexual Orientation and Household Savings: Do Homosexual Couples Save More?," IZA Discussion Papers 4961, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Dilmaghani, Maryam & Dean, Jason, 2020. "Sexual orientation and homeownership in Canada," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    5. Douglas Allen, 2013. "High school graduation rates among children of same-sex households," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 635-658, December.
    6. Oreffice, Sonia, 2016. "Sexual Orientation and Marriage/Orientación sexual y Matrimonio," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 34, pages 7-34, Enero.
    7. Brighita Negrusa & Sonia Oreffice, 2011. "Sexual orientation and household financial decisions: evidence from couples in the United States," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 445-463, December.
    8. Brahma, Sanjukta & Gavriilidis, Konstantinos & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Verousis, Thanos & Zhang, Mengyu, 2023. "LGBTQ and finance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    9. Rshood M. Al-Khraif & Abdullah N. Al-Mutairi & Khaled O. Alradihan & Asharaf Abdul Salam, 2018. "Retiree home ownership in Saudi Arabia: the role of geographic, demographic, social and economic variables," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 169-185, June.

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