The effect of the housing market on mobility and unemployment

Sammanfattning: This thesis analyzes the relationship of housing tenure, mobility and unemployment. With data on the municipal level in Sweden from 1998 to 2010 it is shown that the share of house ownership affects mobility and unemployment negatively while the share of tenant ownership has no effect on mobility and unemployment. The share of house ownership affects primarily the share of out migration from the municipality. The majority of the negative effect of house ownership on unemployment does not go through mobility. The model used is a two way fixed effect model. The different effects of the two types of ownership indicate that they have different characteristics. One explanation could be that house owners are more tied to the municipality than tenant owners. The result does not support the argument that owners in general have higher unemployment because they are less mobile. There is no evidence for that an increase in the share of owners increases the unemployment rate in Sweden.