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Katherine Levine Einstein finds that renters are starkly underrepresented by a margin of over 30 percentage points—a gap that persists across a variety of institutional and demographic contexts.

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 1, 2024

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This video video discusses a study focused on the housing crisis in the U.S. and its relationship with political decision-making. The researchers are interested in how the home ownership status of politicians affects their policy choices, particularly in terms of addressing the needs of renters versus homeowners. They highlight that over 80% of politicians at various levels of government are property owners, which creates a disparity in representation, especially in cities where renters comprise the majority. The study emphasizes that understanding politicians' demographic backgrounds might help explain why public policy often favors homeowners. They are exploring when policymakers prioritize renters' interests and the impact of increased renter representation on housing policy. The research involved collecting data on over 10,000 politicians and their property records, which was analyzed to reveal significant disparities in homeownership among elected officials. The authors aim to investigate how these factors influence housing policy in the context of a nationwide housing crisis.

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So the broader context of this study is the housing crisis

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that we have in the United States.

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Um, so in a lot of places across the country,

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housing has increased, in price exponentially.

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And so one of the sources, of

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that increase in housing prices, our policy choices.

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And so that led us

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to be really interested in thinking about the incentives

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of the politicians who are making those policy decisions

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and the extent to which,

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the housing crisis might be something

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of personal interest to them.

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Um, and so we studied essentially which politicians might be

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more vulnerable to the housing crisis,

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which ones might be renters as opposed to homeowners.

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So I mean, there's a, there's a few

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different literature that we speak to.

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Um, the first is really,

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focused on the demographic characteristics

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of politicians in general.

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Um, and that has been primarily focused on, sort

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of the extent to which, white people

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or men, are overrepresented

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or people from higher income backgrounds.

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And those are all obviously really important in thinking

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about our representational system.

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Um, but we haven't really had good data on the home

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ownership status of those politicians.

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And again, we, we thought understanding those demographic

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traits was gonna be really important,

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for offering policy insight into the housing crisis.

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The other academic literature we obviously speak

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to is more generally about, the politics

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and economics of the housing crisis,

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and really specifically thinking about the way

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that politicians and policy making might intersect

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with those rising housing prices.

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So we collected information on over 10,000 politicians,

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at federal, state and local offices.

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And then we merged that information on those politicians

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with property records, so that we could learn,

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whether or not they owned a home,

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how valuable that home was.

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Um, and yeah, just basically understanding

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how those characteristics could be compared then

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with the general population of the communities

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that those individuals represented.

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So the big punchline, is

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that we have enormous representational disparities when it

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comes to who owns property.

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Um, so over 80% of politicians at all levels

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of government are property owners.

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And I think where the disparities become sort

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of the sharpest right,

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is when we start looking at our local politicians.

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So if we look at mayors

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and city counselors, many

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of whom represent majority renter cities,

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those individuals are still overwhelmingly,

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like over 80% of them are homeowners.

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And so that, that's a really big disparity when we think

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about many of those cities being majority renter cities.

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Um, and, you know, again, depending upon

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how you cut the data, those disparities are actually much

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bigger, than some of the other ones

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that we really commonly study in political science

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by gender, by race, by income.

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So one concern that we might have is that if we think,

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being able to solve the housing crisis means really

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understanding the plight of renters,

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and the precarity that they face in the American housing

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market, the concern is that,

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American politicians, many of them don't sort of have

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that personal experience.

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Um, and again, that doesn't necessarily mean

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that you can't sort of learn about your constituents

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preferences and empathize with those considerations.

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But we do have some evidence to suggest, right,

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that your personal characteristics may shape the policies

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that you think are most important.

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Um, and it suggests that our politicians

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and their demographic backgrounds may help us

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to understand why American public policy is

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so oriented towards the interests of homeowners,

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often at the expense of renters.

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Um, and when we think about sort of where,

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where we wanna go next with this kind of research,

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you know, we're really interested in understanding,

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you know, when policymakers might make decisions

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that prioritize the interests of renters.

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So there's been a lot of really interesting housing policy

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movement actually primarily at the state

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and local level in the United States,

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that has actually moved to produce more housing

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and to reduce housing prices.

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And so we're really interested in this context where we know

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that most politicians are homeowners.

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When do politicians pursue more pro housing policies,

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that favor the interests of renters?

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Um, and does it involve renters being better represented

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descriptively in public policy?

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Yeah, I mean, so we, we did regression analysis, right?

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So it's sort of, typical quantitative analysis

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where we did sort of just basic

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descriptive information, right?

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First of all, just looking overall at the numbers of,

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politicians who are renters and homeowners.

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Um, and then we compared it, right

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to the demographics of those cities.

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So that was a mix of some basic cross tabulations as well

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as regression analyses.

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