IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/oapubs/10197-4437.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does home ownership vary by sexual orientation?

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/4437
    File Function: Open Access version, 2009
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher A. Jepsen & Lisa K. Jepsen, 2006. "The Sexual Division of Labor Within Households: Comparisons of Couples to Roommates," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 32(2), pages 299-312, Spring.
    2. Gyourko, Joseph & Linneman, Peter, 1996. "Analysis of the Changing Influences on Traditional Households' Ownership Patterns," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 318-341, May.
    3. repec:bla:econom:v:72:y:2005:i:286:p:333-347 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Carpenter, Christopher S., 2007. "Revisiting the income penalty for behaviorally gay men: Evidence from NHANES III," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 25-34, January.
    5. Ahmed, Ali M. & Andersson, Lina & Hammarstedt, Mats, 2008. "Are lesbians discriminated against in the rental housing market? Evidence from a correspondence testing experiment," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 234-238, September.
    6. Hoyt, William H & Rosenthal, Stuart S, 1990. "Capital Gains Taxation and the Demand for Owner-Occupied Housing," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(1), pages 45-54, February.
    7. Jeffrey M Wooldridge, 2010. "Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262232588, April.
    8. Borjas, George J., 2002. "Homeownership in the immigrant population," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 448-476, November.
    9. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    10. Weichselbaumer, Doris, 2003. "Sexual orientation discrimination in hiring," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(6), pages 629-642, December.
    11. Alm, James & Badgett, M.V. Lee & Whittington, Leslie A., 2000. "Wedding Bell Blues: The Income Tax Consequences of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 53(n. 2), pages 201-14, June.
    12. Alm, James & Badgett, M.V. Lee & Whittington, Leslie A., 2000. "Wedding Bell Blues: The Income Tax Consequences of Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 53(2), pages 201-214, June.
    13. Karen Leppel, 2007. "Home-ownership among opposite- and same-sex couples in the US," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 1-30.
    14. Rosen, Harvey S., 1979. "Housing decisions and the U.S. income tax : An econometric analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 1-23, February.
    15. M. V. Lee Badgett, 1995. "The Wage Effects of Sexual Orientation Discrimination," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 48(4), pages 726-739, July.
    16. John M. Blandford, 2003. "The Nexus of Sexual Orientation and Gender in the Determination of Earnings," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(4), pages 622-642, July.
    17. M. Lee Badgett & Gary Gates & Natalya Maisel, 2008. "Registered domestic partnerships among gay men and lesbians: the role of economic factors," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 327-346, December.
    18. Black, Dan & Gates, Gary & Sanders, Seth & Taylor, Lowell, 2002. "Why Do Gay Men Live in San Francisco?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 54-76, January.
    19. Erik Plug & Peter Berkhout, 2004. "Effects of sexual preferences on earnings in the Netherlands," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(1), pages 117-131, February.
    20. Christopher Jepsen & Lisa K. Jepsen, 2006. "The sexual division of labor within households revisited : comparisons of couples and roommates," Open Access publications 10197/4448, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    21. Suzanne Heller Clain & Karen Leppel, 2001. "An investigation into sexual orientation discrimination as an explanation for wage differences," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 37-47.
    22. Ioannides, Yannis M & Rosenthal, Stuart S, 1994. "Estimating the Consumption and Investment Demands for Housing and Their Effect on Housing Tenure Status," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 127-141, February.
    23. Dan A. Black & Hoda R. Makar & Seth G. Sanders & Lowell J. Taylor, 2003. "The Earnings Effects of Sexual Orientation," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(3), pages 449-469, April.
    24. Christopher Carpenter, 2004. "New Evidence on Gay and Lesbian Household Incomes," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(1), pages 78-94, January.
    25. Dan A. Black & Seth G. Sanders & Lowell J. Taylor, 2007. "The Economics of Lesbian and Gay Families," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 53-70, Spring.
    26. Coulson, N. Edward, 1999. "Why Are Hispanic- and Asian-American Homeownership Rates So Low?: Immigration and Other Factors," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 209-227, March.
    27. Lisa Jepsen & Christopher Jepsen, 2002. "An empirical analysis of the matching patterns of same-sex and opposite-sex couples," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 39(3), pages 435-453, August.
    28. Gyourko, Joseph & Linneman, Peter & Wachter, Susan, 1999. "Analyzing the Relationships among Race, Wealth, and Home Ownership in America," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 63-89, June.
    29. Christopher S. Carpenter, 2005. "Self-Reported Sexual Orientation and Earnings: Evidence from California," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(2), pages 258-273, January.
    30. Collins, William J. & Margo, Robert A., 2001. "Race and Home Ownership: A Century-Long View," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 68-92, January.
    31. Painter, Gary & Gabriel, Stuart & Myers, Dowell, 2001. "Race, Immigrant Status, and Housing Tenure Choice," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 150-167, January.
    32. Nathan Berg & Donald Lien, 2002. "Measuring The Effect Of Sexual Orientation On Income: Evidence Of Discrimination?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 20(4), pages 394-414, October.
    33. Christopher Carpenter & Gary Gates, 2008. "Gay and lesbian partnership: Evidence from California," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(3), pages 573-590, August.
    34. Marieka M. Klawitter & Victor Flatt, 1998. "The effects of state and local antidiscrimination policies on earnings for gays and lesbians," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(4), pages 658-686.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    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. Brahma, Sanjukta & Gavriilidis, Konstantinos & Kallinterakis, Vasileios & Verousis, Thanos & Zhang, Mengyu, 2023. "LGBTQ and finance," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Negrusa, Brighita & Oreffice, Sonia, 2010. "Sexual Orientation and Household Savings: Do Homosexual Couples Save More?," IZA Discussion Papers 4961, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Dilmaghani, Maryam & Dean, Jason, 2020. "Sexual orientation and homeownership in Canada," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Goodnature, Mia & Neto, Amir Borges Ferreira, 2021. "Same-Sex Unmarried Partners in the Census," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 51(1), April.
    10. M. V. Lee Badgett & Christopher S. Carpenter & Maxine J. Lee & Dario Sansone, 2024. "A Review of the Economics of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 948-994, September.
    11. 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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maryam Dilmaghani, 2018. "Sexual Orientation, Labour Earnings, and Household Income in Canada," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 41-55, March.
    2. Madeline Zavodny, 2008. "Is there a ‘marriage premium’ for gay men?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 369-389, December.
    3. Stephan Humpert, 2012. "Somewhere over the Rainbow: Sexual Orientation Discrimination in Germany," Working Paper Series in Economics 245, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    4. Christafore, David & Leguizamon, Sebastian, 2012. "Earnings differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals and the effects of anti-discriminatory laws: equal but still unmarried," MPRA Paper 45267, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Doris Weichselbaumer, 2015. "Testing for Discrimination against Lesbians of Different Marital Status: A Field Experiment," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 131-161, January.
    6. Christopher Jepsen & Lisa K. Jepsen, 2017. "Self-employment, earnings, and sexual orientation," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 287-305, March.
    7. 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.
    8. Dilmaghani, Maryam & Dean, Jason, 2020. "Sexual orientation and homeownership in Canada," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    9. Marieka Klawitter, 2015. "Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Sexual Orientation on Earnings," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 4-32, January.
    10. Josef Montag, 2015. "What Drives the Gender Gap? An Analysis Using Sexual Orientation," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 577-608, November.
    11. Doris Weichselbaumer, 2013. "Discrimination in gay and lesbian lives," Chapters, in: Deborah M. Figart & Tonia L. Warnecke (ed.), Handbook of Research on Gender and Economic Life, chapter 15, pages 236-254, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Karen Leppel, 2009. "Labour Force Status and Sexual Orientation," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(301), pages 197-207, February.
    13. Chen, Shuai, 2019. "Marriage, minorities, and mass movements," Other publications TiSEM 9cb1b11d-12e6-46a8-adca-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    14. Erik Plug & Dinand Webbink & Nick Martin, 2014. "Sexual Orientation, Prejudice, and Segregation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 123-159.
    15. Ali M. Ahmed & Lina Andersson & Mats Hammarstedt, 2013. "Are Gay Men and Lesbians Discriminated against in the Hiring Process?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(3), pages 565-585, January.
    16. Joseph J. Sabia, 2015. "Fluidity in Sexual Identity, Unmeasured Heterogeneity, and the Earnings Effects of Sexual Orientation," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 33-58, January.
    17. Michael E. Martell, 2018. "Identity Management: Worker Independence And Discrimination Against Gay Men," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(1), pages 136-148, January.
    18. Michael E. Martell & Peyton Nash, 2020. "For Love and Money? Earnings and Marriage Among Same-Sex Couples," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 260-294, September.
    19. Lina Aldén & Lena Edlund & Mats Hammarstedt & Michael Mueller-Smith, 2015. "Effect of Registered Partnership on Labor Earnings and Fertility for Same-Sex Couples: Evidence From Swedish Register Data," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(4), pages 1243-1268, August.
    20. Plug, Erik & Berkhout, Peter, 2008. "Sexual Orientation, Disclosure and Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 3290, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucn:oapubs:10197/4437. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nicolas Clifton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educdie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.