Homeownership is an important symbol of a middle-class standard of living and residential assimilation in the United States. This study explores the rate of advancement into homeownership of immigrants, relative to native borns, in Southern California, a principal region of immigrant settlement. Application of a double cohort method enables longitudinal trends for immigrants, due to both aging and assimilation, to be distinguished from the cohort levels observable by cross-sectional techniques. Recent immigrants as well as young native borns are newcomers to the housing market and have lower attainment levels than earlier arrivals or older cohorts. Cohort trajectories are tracked from 1980 to 1990, adjusting for the influence of income, education, English proficiency, and marital status. Asian immigrants achieved extraordinarily high levels of homeownership soon after arrival, whereas Hispanic immigrants demonstrated sustained advancement into homeownership from initially very low levels.
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