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Does Homeownership Affect Child Outcomes?
Author(s) -
Haurin Donald R.,
Parcel Toby L.,
Haurin R. Jean
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
real estate economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.064
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1540-6229
pISSN - 1080-8620
DOI - 10.1111/1540-6229.t01-2-00053
Subject(s) - affect (linguistics) , renting , instrumental variable , control (management) , panel data , selection bias , cognition , sample (material) , economics , set (abstract data type) , psychology , quality (philosophy) , demographic economics , developmental psychology , econometrics , medicine , philosophy , communication , pathology , chromatography , neuroscience , political science , computer science , law , programming language , chemistry , management , epistemology
We study the impact of homeowning on the cognitive and behavioral outcomes of children. Using four waves of a comprehensive national panel data set, we control for many social, demographic and economic variables previously found to influence child outcomes. The data are a panel, allowing us to control for unobserved household– and child–specific factors. We use a treatment effects model to address the issue of possible sample selection bias caused by unobserved variables that influence both the parent’s choice of whether to own or rent and whether to invest in their children. We find that owning a home compared with renting leads to a 13 to 23% higher quality home environment, greater cognitive ability and fewer child behavior problems. For children living in owned homes, math achievement is up to 9% higher, reading achievement is up to 7% higher, and children’s behavioral problems are 1 to 3% lower.