Marital history and home ownership: evidence from Australia

The relative cost of owning and renting housing and housing affordability have been clearly established as important determinants of home ownership. But the roles of marital status and history have been largely ignored. In this paper we show that both current marital status and past history affect o...

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Main Authors: Hendershott, Patric, Ong, Rachel, Wood, Gavin, Flatau, Paul
Format: Journal Article
Published: Academic Press 2009
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/11680
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author Hendershott, Patric
Ong, Rachel
Wood, Gavin
Flatau, Paul
author_facet Hendershott, Patric
Ong, Rachel
Wood, Gavin
Flatau, Paul
author_sort Hendershott, Patric
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The relative cost of owning and renting housing and housing affordability have been clearly established as important determinants of home ownership. But the roles of marital status and history have been largely ignored. In this paper we show that both current marital status and past history affect ownership. Past history matters because wealth accumulation is greater among couple households than singles owing largely to economies of scale in housing consumption. Moreover, wealth is lost upon divorce. In effect, past marital history affects the affordability of owner housing. This result is shown in the estimation of model explaining wealth, leverage and tenure choice using Australian datasets.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2009
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-116802017-09-13T16:01:59Z Marital history and home ownership: evidence from Australia Hendershott, Patric Ong, Rachel Wood, Gavin Flatau, Paul The relative cost of owning and renting housing and housing affordability have been clearly established as important determinants of home ownership. But the roles of marital status and history have been largely ignored. In this paper we show that both current marital status and past history affect ownership. Past history matters because wealth accumulation is greater among couple households than singles owing largely to economies of scale in housing consumption. Moreover, wealth is lost upon divorce. In effect, past marital history affects the affordability of owner housing. This result is shown in the estimation of model explaining wealth, leverage and tenure choice using Australian datasets. 2009 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/11680 10.1016/j.jhe.2008.09.002 Academic Press restricted
spellingShingle Hendershott, Patric
Ong, Rachel
Wood, Gavin
Flatau, Paul
Marital history and home ownership: evidence from Australia
title Marital history and home ownership: evidence from Australia
title_full Marital history and home ownership: evidence from Australia
title_fullStr Marital history and home ownership: evidence from Australia
title_full_unstemmed Marital history and home ownership: evidence from Australia
title_short Marital history and home ownership: evidence from Australia
title_sort marital history and home ownership: evidence from australia
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/11680