A better method for measuring housing affordability and the role that affordability played in the mobility outcomes of Latino-immigrants following the Great Recession

2015-07-17During the Great Recession in the US, there were distinct housing and labor markets that were particularly hard hit. This was primarily due to the fact that the housing industry had fueled much of the recent economic growth. This paper takes advantage of the shock to the construction industry in order to investigate the responses of Latino immigrants in metropolitan areas that were most heavily concentrated with Latino immigrants in the construction industry. While declines in construction jobs did predict moving out of a metropolitan area, decline in the overall job market had a larger impact on mobility. The shifts in employment and the dramatic changes in housing costs, following the economic boom, provide a unique opportunity to assess the impact of housing affordability on the decision to move. The analysis shows that affordability based upon single and dual incomes differs mainly in degree. Areas with high unaffordability for two incomes are less likely to have in-migration. The measure created helps to highlight the changes in affordability to households if the make-up of households remained constant through the years