Housing Tenure Choice of Taiwanese Immigrants: A Different Path to Residential Assimilation

Zhou Yu, University of Southern California

This paper investigates Taiwanese immigrants' housing tenure choice. It reveals that (1) compared with non-Hispanic whites, all Chinese immigrant groups have higher predicted homeownership and share a more similar mechanism in tenure choice; (2) homeownership gaps between Taiwanese and other Chinese immigrants are quite large among newcomers, converging somewhat as their duration of stay in the U.S. extends; (3) Taiwanese, who contributed to the surge in homeownership in the 1980s, were more likely to be young, highly educated, and new immigrant households with incomes lower than the median level; and (4) Taiwanese stand in contrast to other immigrants as English proficiency does not play a significant role in their homeownership attainment. These outcomes may be an aggregate effect of a large influx of well-off Taiwanese, family support, and cultural affinity for homeownership. Further research is necessary on factors such as locational choice and informal resources in immigrants' tenure choice.