Model of the dynamics of housing tenure choice

Abstract

This study uses data from the 1958 birth cohort, collected in the British National Child Development study. and from the British Household Panel Study, to model the dynamics of young people's first entry to either owner-occupation or tenancy in social housing and subsequent tenure changes. The effects of lifetime earning prospects, family background, a person's own spells of unemployment, the regional unemployment rate and regional relative house prices on the timing and pattern of first entry are estimated in the context of a competing risk hazard model. The analysis also suggests that while the tenure distribution of the population is in large part a reflection of these first tenure decisions, it is also affected to an important degree by subsequent movement, particularly from social housing to owner- occupation. Unexpected events like partnership break-up, acquisition of a partner and spells of unemployment are found to have major impacts on such tenure changes.