Home-ownership: Cohort dynamics, family formation, and socioeconomic resources

Many people in Germany want to live in owner-occupied homes, but only about 40 % of all households in Germany do so. This study deals with the questio n of how the start of a family and individual socioeconomic resources deter mine the transition to home-ownership. The empirical analysis is based on a representative sample survey of retrospectively ascertained data from the biographies of West Germans born between 1919 and 1961. The transition to h ome-ownership rakes place within the long period between the ages of 20 and 50. people born in 1930 or 1940 became home-owners earlier than rile older cohorts. This process, however, has not accelerated in the younger cohorts . Home-ownership of parents makes it easier for children to become home-own ers themselves. Apart from this, the transition to home-ownership is closel y associated with marriage, education, duration of working life, and degree of urbanization.