The Impact of Education Level on Home Ownership: Intertemporal Comparison

With respect to the fact that housing satisfies a social need, in addition to the impact of economic factors, the social factors are alsoimportant in housing market. The broad economic and social developments in previous years require a study on their impacts on home ownership, so recognizing important factors is a good guide for planners and policy makers. Since people with higher education need to spend some money on their education and this education status increases the expectation of people with higher degrees with respect to their salaries and employment opportunities, therefore studying the impact of education level on the probability of home ownership and evaluating its trend in different time horizons has a critical importance. Since about twenty percent of higher education graduates of Iran do reside in Tehran province, this effect for Tehran province is stronger and of higher importance. In this study with emphasis on recognizing the effect of factors identified in theoretical basis, we have used logit and probit models to investigate the importance of some factors affecting the status of home ownership with emphasis on education level of head of households during the years 1997, 2002 and 2007. The results show that the socio-economic characteristics of households have a significant effect on housing ownership and the relationship between education level of head of household and home ownership is negative. Also the probability of home ownership in families with higher education decrease in the years under study.