The model of tenure choice in life cycle of Poles – empirical analysis

We analyse tenure choice determinants of Poles for the years 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018 on EU-SILC data, distinguishing between co-residence with the parents, renting at market rates and owning a house. The average marginal effects obtained from multinomial logistic regressions allows us to conclude that ownership is strongly connected to the family status, but this relationship weakens over time. Unmarried people without children but with better incomes become increasingly more likely to be homeowners. Thus, ownership is not anymore a main domain of conventional families. Moreover, renting becomes an option to become independent for those who cannot afford to buy a house. But it is rather a temporary solution, because renting is more costly than buying a house with a mortgage. We also find evidence of the gender gap in homeownership, as women are more likely to be owners, and less likely to co-reside with their parents than men. Along the evolution of the housing finance system, growing wages make ownership more likely. We observe that the choices are more free in densely populated regions, where the rental market develops. In this part of the paper explain the data that we use, present the empirical results and discuss them.