The study uses data from the 1958 birth cohort, collected in the Briti
sh National Child Development Study, to model the dynamics of people's
first entry to either owner-occupation or tenancy in social housing,
the two major tenures in Britain. The effects of lifetime earnings pro
spects, 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 co
mpeting risk hazard model. It also shows that, given the observed matr
ix of subsequent tenure transitions, these impacts on the timing and d
estination of first major tenure also have important effects on the nu
mber of years which a person spends in each tenure over his/her life.
(C) 1997 Academic Press.