Immigrants' home-ownership decision in migration projects. Subjective determinants and external constraints

According to the data of the 2001-2015 ISMU-ORIM Surveys, the propensity towards homeownership among immigrants in Lombardy increased until 2007. Since 2009 this propensity has decreased, and it continues to decrease, although at a slower pace. This work examined the main determinants of the attitude towards homeownership, in order to identify the factors responsible for the variations detected during the period observed. Therefore, the homeownership rate (HOR) variation was decomposed into two components: the structural variation that affects yearly population (cohort replacement) and the residual ‘pure’ propensity to homeownership. The results highlighted that differences in the HOR are mainly due to differences in the homeownership propensity, while variations in population composition have a negligible effect except for variables associated with family settlement for the second period. This could be considered as a sign that something has changed in migration projects