The Associations between Student Debt and Precarious Employment on Millennial Homeownership in the United States

Abstract

Millennials have shifted into adulthood amidst great economical barriers, which reduce rates of homeownership for this cohort. Trends suggest that Millennials spend much of their young adulthood pursuing education and developing careers for increased financial stability, as levels of student debt and instable employment may limit the resources necessary to purchase a home. This study aims specifically to investigate how possessing student debt and precarious employment may reduce the likelihood of home-buying among Millennials, individuals born between 1981 and 1996 (Colby and Ortman 2014; Dimock 2019). Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) from the year 2017 is analyzed and logistic regressions are conducted to test the hypothesis that Millennials who carry student debt and are precariously employed are less likely to own a home. Results indicate that possessing student debt does not have a significant reduction of Millennial homeownership, but measures of precarious employment do not conclusively predict the likelihood of homeownership. This study’s findings suggest that the deterrents to Millennial homeownership are interconnected with the period effects of the Great Recession and various lifestyle factors.