Are Immigrants Buying to Get In?: The Role of Ethnic Clustering on the Homeownership Propensities of 12 Toronto Immigrant Groups, 1996-2001 - ARCHIVED

Numerous studies equate immigrant homeownership with assimilation into the residential mainstream, though only rarely is this claim verified by studying the ethnic character of neighbourhoods where immigrants actually buy homes. In this paper, the 1996 and 2001 Census of Canada master files and bivariate probit models with sample selection corrections (a.k.a. Heckman probit models) are used to assess the neighbourhood-level ethnic determinants of homeownership in Toronto, Canada. By determining whether low levels of ethnic concentration accompany a home purchase, it can be assessed whether immigrants exit their enclaves in search of a home in the 'promised land', as traditional assimilation theory suggests, or if some now seek homes in the 'ethnic communities' that Logan, Alba and Zhang (2002) recently introduced in the American Sociological Review. Assessing the role of concentration under equilibrium conditions, evidence emerges that same-group concentration affects the propensity of several group members to buy homes.