Homeownership and Social Participation

In addition to investigating these private, or individual, benefits, Bucchianeri also examined civic aspects of homeownership. Again, she found that despite the conventional wisdom, homeowners are not significantly different in terms of civic participation or social connectedness than renters. The paper states that the most striking finding in regard to social interaction is that average homeowners spend 4% to 6% less time interacting with friends and neighbors and experience more negative feelings when they are with other people. At the same time, these homeowners spend a similar amount of time with their spouses as renters do and less time with their parents and relatives. "So far, my results are contrary to the intuition that homeownership fosters more involved or better family lives. Indeed, it points to less active and less enjoyable social lives," Bucchianeri writes.

When it comes to homeownership and civic participation and social connectedness, Bucchianeri compared indicators such as volunteer work, joy or pain experienced from activities in the community and pain from politics -- but she finds no significant differences by homeownership status. She also discovers little difference between homeowners and renters in participation in religion or satisfaction derived from it.

When Bucchianeri examines civic participation of homeowners against the rate of homeownership in the respondent's neighborhood, she finds evidence that higher ownership rates in the respondents' own demographic and household income groups leads to lower reported pain from the neighborhood. "I do find results that if you are surrounded by people who are homeowners like you, that makes you enjoy the neighborhood and contributes to a positive attitude," says Bucchianeri. She adds that these findings suggest that looking at homeowners versus renters in this context may be too narrow an approach. "It may be more fruitful to look at the mechanics to capture the interactions among homeowners."

Bucchianeri notes that despite the evidence that homeowners do not appear to be living as if they are in a dream, her results would actually tend toward an upward bias in well-being outcomes for homeowners. Homeownership may also open up new opportunities for pain that Bucchianeri can study in the future, including the joy or disappointment homeowners experience as a result of their relative housing position. She says it is difficult to pull out solid findings, "but I think that on average people like living in zip codes with a higher median housing value so they can live in reflected glory."

Bucchianeri cautions that her research should not be used as an argument against homeownership, just as the abstract notion of the American Dream should not be used as an across-the-board endorsement for buying a home. People should balance what they are hoping to get from homeownership itself," she says. "It's really difficult, but more thinking should go into this rather than just accepting the conventional wisdom and going into homeownership by default."