Immigration is no longer a phenomenon that is simply affecting gateway metropolitan areas in the United States. This analysis demonstrates that large numbers of immigrants are moving to other metropolitan areas and analyses the housing outcomes of households who currently live in the 14 largest emerging gateways. The findings suggest that those households that move from most gateway metropolitan areas have lower homeownership rates than do households that move from within the metropolitan area. Meanwhile, there is little evidence that immigrants do worse than native-born households that migrate within the US. The study also demonstrates that immigrants living in crowded conditions or having multiple workers in the household have higher homeownership rates than similar native-born households, and that younger immigrants are relatively more successful in attaining homeownership than are similar native-born residents.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alba, R. and Logan, J.R. (1992) Assimilation and stratification in the homeownership patterns of racial and ethnic groups, International Migration Review, 26, pp. 1314-1341.
2.
Boehm, T.P., Herzog, H.W. Jr and Schlottmann, A.M. (1991) Intra-urban mobility, migration, and tenure choice, Review of Economics and Statistics, 73, pp. 59-68.
3.
Borjas, G.J. (1985) Assimilation, changes in cohort quality, and the earnings of immigrants, Journal of Labor Economics, 3, pp. 463-489.
4.
Borjas, G.J. (1999) Immigration and welfare magnets, Journal of Labor Economics, 17, pp. 607-637.
5.
Borjas, G.J. (2001) Does immigration grease the wheels of the labor market?, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2001(1), pp. 69-134.
6.
Borjas, G.J. (2002) Homeownership in the immigrant population, Journal of Urban Economics, 52, pp. 448-476.
7.
Card, D. (2001) Immigrant inflows, native outflows, and the local labor market impacts of higher immigration, Journal of Labor Economics, 19, pp. 22-64.
8.
Carliner, G. (2000) The language ability of U.S. immigrants: assimilation and cohort effects, International Migration Review, 34, pp. 158-182.
9.
Charles, K.K. and Hurst, E. (2002) The transition to home ownership and the black-white wealth gap, Review of Economics and Statistics, 84(2), pp. 281-297.
10.
Chiswick, B.R. (1978) The effect of Americanization on the earnings of foreign-born men, Journal of Political Economy, 86, pp. 897-921.
11.
Chiswick, B.R. and Miller, P.W. (1994) Language choice among immigrants in a multi-lingual destination, Journal of Population Economics, 7, pp. 119-131.
12.
Chiswick, B.R. and Miller, P.W. (1995) The endogeneity between language and earnings: international analyses, Journal of Labor Economics, 13, pp. 246-288.
13.
Clark, W.A.V.( 2003) Immigrants and the American Dream: Remaking the Middle Class. New York: Guilford Press .
14.
Coulson, N.E. (1999) Why are Hispanic- and Asian-American home-ownership rates so low? Immigration and other factors, Journal of Urban Economics, 45, pp. 209-227.
15.
Frey, W.H. (2003) Metropolitan magnets for international and domestic migrants. Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.
16.
Gabriel, S.A., Shack-Marquez, J. and Wascher, W.L. (1993) The effects of regional house price and labor market variability on interregional migration: evidence from the 1980s, in: G. T. Kingsley and M. A. Turner (Eds) Housing Markets and Residential Mobility , pp. 31-50. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press.
17.
Green, R.K. and White, M.J. (1997) Measuring the benefits of homeowning: effects on children, Journal of Urban Economics, 41, pp. 441-461.
18.
Greenwood, M.J., Klopfenstein, K. and McDowell, J.M. (2002) The internal migration of the U.S. foreign born as an assimilation process. Paper presented at the Western Regional Science Association Annual Conference, Monterey, CA, February.
19.
Gyourko, J. and Linneman, P. (1996) Analysis of the changing influences on traditional households' ownership patterns, Journal of Urban Economics , 39, pp. 318-341.
20.
Haurin, D.R., Hendershott, P.H. and Wachter, S.M. (1997) Borrowing constraints and the tenure choice of young households, Journal of Housing Research, 8, pp. 137-154.
21.
Haurin, D.R., Parcel, T.L. and Haurin, R.J. (2002) Impact of homeownership on child outcomes, in: N. P. Retsinas and E. S. Belsky (Eds) Low-income Homeownership: Examining the Unexamined Goal, pp. 427-446. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
22.
Ihlanfeldt, K.R. (1981) An empirical investigation of alternative approaches to estimation of the equilibrium demand for housing, Journal of Urban Economics, 9, pp. 97-105.
23.
James, F.J., Romine, J.A. and Zwanzig, P.E. (1998) The effects of immigration on urban communities , Cityscape, 3, pp. 171-192.
24.
Kelley, D. and Chavez, C. (2004) California dreaming no more; the Carranza family, like many Latino immigrants, found its way into the American middle class by leaving the Golden State, Los Angeles Times, 16 February, p. 1.
25.
Kritz, M.M. and Gurak, D.T. (2001) The impact of immigration on the internal migration of natives and immigrants, Demography, 38, pp. 133-145.
26.
Krivo, L.J. (1995) Immigrant characteristics and Hispanic-Anglo housing inequality, Demography, 32, pp. 599-615.
27.
Lieberson, S. (1963) Ethnic Patterns in American Cities. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
28.
Logan, J.R., Alba, R.D. and Zhang, W. (2002) Immigrant enclaves and ethnic communities in New York and Los Angeles, American Sociological Review, 67, pp. 299-322.
29.
Massey, D.S. (1985) Ethnic residential segregation: a theoretical synthesis and empirical review, Sociology and Social Research, 69, pp. 315-350.
30.
Massey, D.S. and Denton, N.A. (1985) Spatial assimilation as a socioeconomic outcome , American Sociological Review, 50, pp. 94-106.
31.
Myers, D. (1999) Demographic dynamism and metropolitan change: comparison of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., Housing Policy Debate, 10, pp. 919-955.
32.
Myers, D. and Cranford, C. (1998) Temporal differentiation in the occupational mobility of immigrant and native-born Latina workers, American Sociological Review, 63, pp. 68-93.
33.
Myers, D. and Lee, S.W. (1996) Immigration cohorts and residential overcrowding in Southern California, Demography, 33, pp. 51-65.
34.
Myers, D. and Lee, S.W. (1998) Immigrant trajectories into homeownership: a temporal analysis of residential assimilation, International Migration Review, 32, pp. 593-625.
35.
Myers, D., Baer, W.C. and Choi, S.-Y. (1996) The changing problem of overcrowded housing, Journal of the American Planning Association, 62, pp. 66-84.
36.
Myers, D., Megbolugbe, I. and Lee, S.W. (1998) Cohort estimation of homeownership attainment among native-born and immigrant populations, Journal of Housing Research, 9, pp. 237-269.
37.
Painter, G. (2000) Tenure choice with sample selection: differences among alternative samples, Journal of Housing Economics, 9, pp. 197-213.
38.
Painter, G., Gabriel, S.A. and Myers, D. (2001) Race, immigrant status, and housing tenure choice , Journal of Urban Economics, 49, pp. 150-167.
39.
Painter, G., Yang, L. and Yu, Z. (2003) Heterogeneity in Asian American homeownership: the impact of household endowments and immigrant status, Urban Studies, 40, pp. 505-530.
40.
Painter, G.,Yang,L. and Yu, Z. (2004) Homeownership determinants for Chinese Americans: assimilation, ethnic concentration, and nativity, Real Estate Economics, 32, pp. 509-539.
41.
Park, J.H. (1999) The earnings of immigrants in the United States: the effect of English-speaking ability, The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 58, pp. 43-56.
42.
Rohe, W.M. and Stewart, L. (1996) Homeownership and neighborhood stability, Housing Policy Debate, 7, pp. 37-46.
43.
Rohe, W.M., Zandt, S. van and McCarthy, G. (2002) Home ownership and access to opportunity, Housing Studies, 17, pp. 51-61.
44.
Roseman, C.C. (1971) Migration as a spatial and temporal process, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 61, pp. 589-598.
45.
Rosenbaum, E. and Friedman, S.R. (2004) Nativity status and racial/ethnic differences in access to quality housing: does homeownership bring greater parity?, Housing Policy Debate, 15, pp. 865-901.
46.
Ruggles, S., Sobek, M., Alexander, T. et al. (2003) Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0. Historical Census Projects, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
47.
Singer, A. (2004) The rise of new immigrant gateways. Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.
48.
Skaburskis,A. (1996) Race and tenure in Toronto, Urban Studies, 33, pp. 223-252.
49.
White, M.J., Biddlecom,A.E. and Guo, S. (1993) Immigration, naturalization, and residential assimilation among Asian Americans in 1980, Social Forces, 72, pp. 93-117.
50.
Yu, Z. and Myers, D. (2007) Convergence or divergence in Los Angeles: three distinctive ethnic patterns of immigrant residential assimilation, Social Science Research, 36, pp. 254-285.
51.
Zax, J.S. (1994) When is a move a migration?, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 24, pp. 341-360.
52.
Zeng, Z. and Xie, Y. (2004) Asian-Americans' earnings disadvantage reexamined: the role of place of education, The American Journal of Sociology , 109(5), pp. 1075-1108.
