Determinants of immigrants’ entry to homeownership in three nordic capital city regions

Abstract

The extent of homeownership among immigrants may be seen as an indicator of integration and as a determinant of ethnic residential segregation. Studies have shown differences in the determinants of homeownership between immigrants and natives, indicating that variation in homeownership is not only a function of differences in economic resources. These studies have largely focused on Anglo‐American contexts, using mostly cross‐sectional data. We apply survival analysis methods to analyse the determinants of entry to homeownership in the capital regions of three Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland and Sweden – utilizing longitudinal individual‐level register‐based datasets. We find that differences in entry to homeownership between natives and different immigrant groups cannot be explained by differences in socio‐economic background factors. We also find differences in the effects of these factors. Effects of income are generally weaker among non‐Western immigrants and immigrants are less responsive to changes in household composition. The share of non‐Western immigrants in the neighbourhood is only weakly related to entry to homeownership, while immigrants and natives living in public rental housing tend to be slightly less inclined to move to homeownership. Weaker income effects among immigrants, weak effects of ethnic segregation and the importance of the public rental sector differentiate our results from earlier findings. Weaker income effects may indicate that uncertainty about the future also affects middle‐income immigrants. Differences between the three contexts in housing markets and policies do not seem to matter much, although the results indicate that difficult access to the private rental sector may push immigrants to homeownership.

Does the Homeownership Gap Between Rural–Urban Migrants and Urban–Urban Migrants in China Vary by Income?

“…As for the migration status, we find that those who migrated with their whole family have a high probability of owning a house, whereas sole migrants are unlikely to be homeowners. This finding is consistent with that of Alba and Logan (1992) and Kauppinen et al (2015), thereby confirming that housing needs also exert a large effect on homeownership. The migrants with permanent settlement intention have more likelihood to own a house, which is consistent with Tang et al (2017), which confirmed that migrants' settlement intention are positively related with the housing attainment of rural migrants' in the urban destinations.…”

“…Household income is regarded as the most uniformly important determinant of homeownership, and families with high incomes are more likely to own a home than those with low income (Alba & Logan, 1992;Kauppinen et al, 2015). The homeownership gap between rural-urban and urbanurban migrants may vary across varied income groups.…”

Immigrants’ mobility towards native-dominated neighbourhoods: the role of individual resources, country of origin, and settlement context

“…Bolt and van Kempen 2003). Spatial assimilation in the Nordic countries has mainly been studied from three perspectives: moving away from distressed immigrant-dense neighbourhoods (Vogiazides 2018;Macpherson and Strömgren 2013), moving to a neighbourhood considered higher status in socioeconomic terms (Wessel et al 2017;Magnusson Turner and Wessel 2013), and moving into homeownership as an indicator of integration (Magnusson Turner and Hedman 2014;Kauppinen, Andersen, and Hedman 2015;Kauppinen and Vilkama 2016). Most of these studies find some limited support for the spatial assimilation thesis 1 (although Wessel et al (2017) find a complete lack of spatial integration), but the studies that consider differences between immigrant groups find that variation between groups is insufficiently explained by socioeconomic attributes.…”

Policy Considerations regarding the Integration of Lusophone West African Immigrant Populations

“…This measure would likely require an urban planner and/or a city-housing engineer who could be consulted by community residents when needed to legitimise and stabilise the informal housing boom. The extent of homeownership among immigrants may be seen as an indicator of integration (Kauppinen et al, 2015), although integration and wealth acquisition is gradual and not every immigrant achieves this status (Maroto and Alysworth, 2016). Bearing this in mind, the national government should be prepared to view migrant homeownership both as a process and a long-term goal, in order to enable immigrant integration, upward mobility, and overall community development.…”