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Are lesbians discriminated against in the rental housing market? Evidence from a correspondence testing experiment
Journal of Housing Economics 17 (2008) 234–238
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Housing Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhe
Are lesbians discriminated against in the rental housing market? Evidence from a correspondence testing experiment Ali M. Ahmed a,b,*, Lina Andersson b, Mats Hammarstedt b a b
Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg, Box 640, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden School of Management and Economics, Växjö University, SE-351 95 Växjö, Sweden
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 21 November 2007 Available online 10 July 2008
JEL classification: C93 J15 J71
a b s t r a c t This paper presents a field experiment, conducted over the Internet, studying possible discrimination against lesbians in the rental housing market in Sweden. We let two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian, apply for vacant rental apartments advertised by landlords on the Internet. We then investigated whether there were differences between the couples in the number of received call-backs, invitations to further contact, and invitations to immediate showings. Our findings show no indication of differential treatment of lesbians by landlords. A discussion relating to earlier findings is provided. Ó 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Sexual orientation Discrimination Field experiments Housing market Internet
1. Introduction During recent decades, field experiments have been used to detect discrimination in the housing markets in several countries. Most of these experiments have focused on discrimination against different ethnic groups, and the fact that ethnic discrimination exists in the housing market in different countries is relatively well documented today (see Yinger, 1986; Page, 1995; Roychoudhury and Goodman, 1996; Ondrich et al., 1998, 1999; Turner et al., 2002; Ondrich et al., 2003; Ross and Turner, 2005; Ahmed and Hammarstedt, 2008a). However, despite the fact that field experiments have been widely used, and despite the fact that discrimination against ethnic groups has been documented, relatively little attention has been paid to
* Corresponding author. Address: School of Management and Economics, Växjö University, SE-351 95 Växjö, Sweden. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (A.M. Ahmed). 1051-1377/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jhe.2008.06.003
discrimination in the housing market based on other characteristics, such as gender and sexual orientation. Up to now, there is only one study that has focused on discrimination in the housing market based on sexual orientation. Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008b) conducted a field experiment in the rental housing market in Sweden and found discrimination against male homosexuals, since a male homosexual couple got far fewer call-backs and invitations to showings of apartments than did a heterosexual couple when they applied for vacant apartments. However, no study has addressed discrimination against lesbians in the housing market. We have reason to believe that male homosexuals and lesbians are treated differently in that market. One argument for this is that previous research has documented discrimination against male homosexuals in the labor market, while there is little evidence for labor market discrimination against lesbians (see, e.g., Badgett, 1995; Klawitter and Flatt, 1998; Allegretto and Arthur, 2001; Arabsheibani et al., 2004, 2005; Plug and Berkhout, 2004; Ahmed and Hammarstedt, 2008c). Another argument
A.M. Ahmed et al. / Journal of Housing Economics 17 (2008) 234–238
for us to believe that lesbians and male homosexuals are treated differently by landlords is that previous research has shown that landlords prefer females to males as tenants (Ahmed and Hammarstedt, 2008a). Against this background, the aim of this paper is to study if lesbians are discriminated against when they apply for vacant apartments in the rental housing market in Sweden. The study is conducted with the Internet as a research platform. Two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian, openly signaling their sexual orientation, apply for vacant rental apartments advertised by landlords on the Internet in Sweden. Lesbians are thus identified as women living with partners of the same sex. We explore the incidence of discrimination by observing the choice by landlords to email back and invite applicants for further contacts and/ or to a showing of the housing unit. If landlords, or their tenants, have tastes for discrimination, or stereotypes, and can distinguish the lesbian from the heterosexual couple, the result may be lower call-back rates for the lesbian couple. We may also expect fewer positive responses and invitations to showings to the lesbian than to the heterosexual couple. Up to now, only three studies have used the Internet as a research platform in order to detect discrimination in the housing market. Carpusor and Loges (2006) and Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008a) were the first studies that used the Internet as a research field. The focus in those papers, however, was on discrimination against ethnic minorities. The closest paper to the present study is the study mentioned above, by Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008b). They applied for vacant apartments on the Internet and studied discrimination against gay men. Hence, there is an empty space in the literature regarding the treatment of lesbians in the housing market. The present paper fills this gap. In line with research into discrimination against lesbians in the labor market, our results show no indication of discrimination against lesbians in the rental housing market in Sweden. The differences in call-back rates, invitations for further contact, and invitations to immediate showings between the lesbian and the heterosexual couple were negligible. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: The next section presents the experimental details, Section 3 reports the results, and Section 4 concludes. 2. Experimental design We conducted our experiment on the Internet following the design of Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008a,b). Using the Internet gave us the advantage of being able to use written applications rather than personal approaches, thereby avoiding the potential problems that may arise from personal appearances (see Heckman, 1998). Experiments with written applications have previously been used in the labor market; see, for example, Bertrand and Mullainthan (2004). With written applications, we controlled for all possible nuisances that may bias the experiment and only changed the variable we were interested in studying: sexual orientation.1
1 For further discussion about methodological issues and about the advantages of written applications, see Foster et al. (2002), Bertrand and Mullainthan (2004), and Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008a).
235
We signaled sexual orientation by letting two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian, apply to rent vacant apartments. The experiment was carried out between August 23 and September 6, 2007. During this period we applied to all available apartments with two rooms or more on Blocket.se. This is one of the largest buy-and-sell sites in Sweden where the housing market is an active segment. Companies and private landlords announce vacant apartments, and it is free of cost to respond to any of the ads. Without any restrictions regarding location and rental cost, we applied, as a heterosexual couple and as a lesbian couple, to all available apartments during the period. However, we eliminated any ad where applicants were asked to call, forward a letter through ordinary post, or appear in person. Most of the advertisers, though, preferred to be contacted by email. We also eliminated all ads stating that they only wished responses from a particular gender. We recorded the time, date, heading of the ad, geographical area, whether the landlord was a private person or a company, name of the landlord (when available), gender, whether the landlord had a foreign-sounding name, the number of rooms in the apartment, and the rental cost per month. When we received responses from the landlords, we recorded whether landlords emailed back or not. If they emailed back, then we recorded whether the landlords rejected the application or if they invited further contacts and asked for more information about the couple. Finally, we recorded whether the landlord invited the couple to a showing without any further inquiries. To minimize inconvenience to landlords, invitations to showings were rapidly and politely declined. Before we could run the experiment and apply for vacant apartments, we needed to create identities for two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian. There was no need for telephone numbers and postal addresses since all correspondence was accomplished through email. The only information required when answering an ad was a person’s name and an email address to which a landlord could reply. For the lesbian couple we used the names Maria and Pernilla, and for the heterosexual couple we used the names Anna and Per. These are typical Swedish names and are genderunique. We also used typical Swedish last names for the persons who were the corresponding applicants. We let Maria be the corresponding applicant for herself and Pernilla, and we let Anna be the corresponding applicant for herself and Per. We chose to let Anna be the corresponding applicant for the heterosexual couple because we wanted a female to be the corresponding applicant in both cases. Thus, our two experimental fictitious couples were: Maria Andersson and Pernilla, the lesbian couple, and Anna Johansson and Per, the heterosexual couple. Next we registered email addresses for the corresponding applicants, Maria and Anna. To minimize the risk of being exposed, we created email accounts with different email providers.2 Another important part in the experimental design was to generate application letters. In order to let both couples
2 Email accounts were created under the addresses maria.andersson@ post.com, and [email protected].
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A.M. Ahmed et al. / Journal of Housing Economics 17 (2008) 234–238
apply to all ads and, again, minimize the risk of being exposed, we generated four different formulations of an application letter with similar content. We put together concise letters that eliminated many undesired sources of variation. The only thing that differed between couples was whether they were heterosexual or lesbian. The letters clearly indicated that the applicants were a couple. For example, one version of the application letter for the lesbian couple was:3 Hi, We would like to sign up as interested in the announced apartment. We are a couple without children (nonsmokers, and no pets) searching for an apartment with 2–4 rooms. Maria is 31 years old and is a nurse and Pernilla is 33 years old and is a banker. Good references. No payment complaints. Regards, Maria & Pernilla There might be several reasons for why a cohabitant couple applies to a vacant apartment together, i.e., signing the application with both names. One obvious reason is that by applying together and mentioning that both are employed, couples signal that they have two stable incomes and thereby have an advantage compared to singles. As regards lesbians, one might, of course, argue that they can minimize the risk of being discriminated by concealing their sexuality. One way of concealing sexual orientation is to let only one of the lesbian applicants apply for apartments. However, as argued by Badgett (1995), hiding one’s sexual orientation might cause anxiety and stress, and therefore, we believe that individuals will not hide their sexual orientation when they apply for apartments. Obviously, the couples never applied for the same apartment with letters that were identical in the wording. Each of the four formulations was used 25% of the time for each couple. We also controlled for the order of the applications from our two couples. Thus, half of the time the heterosexual couple was first to apply and half of the time the lesbian couple was the first to put in an answer. The time delay between applications to the same apartment was between a half hour and 1 h. Before we turn to our results, one should be aware of the fact that the Internet is only one of several channels that could be used for a rental housing search. Other common channels are newspaper ads and social networks, which we clearly did not include in our study. This exclusion could have qualitatively influenced our results, if the reality is that lesbian applicants typically use other search channels than heterosexual applicants. Also, the results might have been affected if landlords who advertise on the Internet discriminate either more or less than landlords who use other channels for advertising apartments for rent. Also, related to the previous problem, we must confront an issue concerning how representative our data is. In this study, we considered only privately-owned apartments. Almost half of the rental dwellings in Sweden are, how-
3
The other versions of the application letters are available upon request.
ever, owned by public housing companies (non-profit organizations owned by local authorities). Publicly-owned apartments are not advertised on the Internet; instead, the application and search processes for these units are handled by the municipalities in which they are located. Compared to other nations, Sweden has a large share of rental dwellings that are handled by local authorities. One should keep this in mind when drawing conclusions from the results. 3. Results We applied to 423 apartments for each couple. Table 1 presents the average call-back rates by sexual orientation, given in percentages. Included in the brackets beside each rate is the actual number of cases out of the total of 423. The first row in Table 1 presents the percentage of applications that resulted in a contact, regardless of whether it was a positive or a negative response. The second row gives the percentage of applications that resulted in a positive response from the landlord, that is, cases where the landlord invited the applicant to further contact. An example of this is a request to provide the landlord with additional information about the couple, or to a showing of the apartment. The third row shows the percentage of applications that resulted in a direct invitation to a showing. Thus, the category, ‘‘Invited to further contacts or to a showing” is a broader definition of a positive call-back than the category, ‘‘Invited to a showing”. Table 1 shows that both couples had a 49% chance that their applications would result in a contact. For both couples, almost 45% of their applications led to positive callbacks in the sense that they were invited by the landlord either to provide further information about themselves or to a showing of the apartment. Finally, in 27% of the cases, the heterosexual couple got an immediate invitation by the landlord to a showing. The corresponding figure for the lesbian couple was 25%. As indicated in Table 1, none of the minor differences in these respects between the lesbian couple and the heterosexual couple are statistically significant. In Table 1, we tabulated the distribution of call-backs at the applicant level. In Table 2, we instead computed the
Table 1 Percent (number) of applications that led to a contact, percent (number) of applications that led to an invitation to further contacts or to a showing, and percent (number) of applications that led to an invitation to a showing Sample size
Hetero
Lesbian
Ratio
McNemar test
Contact
423
p = 1.000
423
48.9 (207) 44.4 (188)
1.00
Invited to further contacts or to a showing Invited to a showing
48.9 (207) 44.9 (190)
1.01
p = 0.883
26.5 (112)
25.1 (106)
1.06
p = 0.362
423
The p-values reported are for a two-sided McNemar test of symmetry between the proportion of landlords that favored the heterosexual couple and the proportion that favored the lesbian couple. We also conducted the binominal sign test, resulting in the same p-values.
A.M. Ahmed et al. / Journal of Housing Economics 17 (2008) 234–238 Table 2 Distribution of call-back rates in percent (number of cases within parentheses) Sample size
Both no
Both yes
Hetero
Lesbian
McNemar test
Contact
423 184
43.5 (184) 90.2 (166)
5.4 (23) 1.1 (2)
5.4 (23) 0.0 (0)
p = 1.000
Invited to further contacts or to a showing Invited to a showing
45.6 (193) 8.7 (16)
39.2 (65)
56.6 (94)
2.4 (4)
1.8 (3)
p = 1.000
166
p = 0.500
The p-values reported are for a two-sided McNemar test of symmetry between the proportion of landlords that favored the heterosexual couple and the proportion that favored the lesbian couple. We also conducted the binominal sign test, resulting in the same p-values.
percentage of landlords that did not respond to either of the couples (given by the column ‘‘Both no”), the percentage of landlords that responded to both of the couples (given by the column ‘‘Both yes”), the percentage of landlords that favored the heterosexual couple (given by the column ‘‘Hetero”), and the percentage of landlords that were in favor of the lesbian couple (given by the column ‘‘Lesbian”). The heterosexual couple is considered as the favored one when the landlord responded to them but not to the lesbian couple. If only the lesbian couple got a response, then they are judged as favored. What is of interest in Table 2 is to observe if there is symmetry between the proportion of landlords that favors the heterosexual couple and the proportion that approves of the lesbian couple. Again, for all three measurements— ‘‘Contact”, ‘‘Invited to further contacts or to a showing”, and ‘‘Invited to a showing”—we found no statistically significant differences in how the landlords treated the lesbian couple and the heterosexual couple.4 4. Discussion In economics, little is known about how individuals’ successfulness in different markets is related to their sexual orientation. The most plausible reason for this is a lack of data where sexual preferences can be identified. There is, however, a small number of papers reporting investigations of the effect of sexual orientation in the labor market and in the housing market. As regards the labor market, there are studies that have shown that homosexual men may be subject to discrimination in pay, in the sense that they earn less than heterosexual men (e.g., Badgett, 1995; Klawitter and Flatt, 1998; Allegretto and Arthur,
4 We have also estimated probit specifications for the probability of recieving a contact, being invited to further contacts or to a showing, as well as being invited to a showing. No statistically significant differences were found between lesbians and heterosexuals in those specifications. Each specification controlled for the number of rooms and the rent of the apartment, whether the landlord was a company or a private person, if the apartment was localized in a metropolitan area or not, the gender of the landlord, and if the landlord had an immigrant background. We also experimented with different interaction terms, which turned out to be insignificant. The probit estimates are available upon request.
237
2001; Arabsheibani et al., 2004, 2005; Plug and Berkhout, 2004; Ahmed and Hammarstedt, 2008c). However, none of these studies have found similar results for lesbians. In contrast, some of the studies have found that the earnings of lesbians are even higher than for comparable heterosexual females (e.g., Arabsheibani et al., 2004, 2005; Plug and Berkhout, 2004). In the Swedish housing market, Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008b) have documented that homosexual male couples face discrimination when they apply for rental apartments, which manifests itself in their getting less response and fewer invitations to showings from the landlords than heterosexual couples. Since the results of studies of the labor market suggest that lesbians may be faced with experiences that are different from those of homosexual men, we found it worthwhile to engage in a study, reported here, of lesbians’ successfulness in the rental housing market. Our observations show no indication of discrimination against lesbians on that market in Sweden, since the differences in call-back rates, invitations to further contact, and invitations to immediate showings between the lesbian and the heterosexual couple of our study were negligible. Thus, our results presented in this paper are in line with results that have been obtained in labor market research regarding discrimination against lesbians. One important question that then presents itself is why homosexual males are discriminated, but not homosexual females. As regards the labor market, it has been argued that lesbian females are doing better than heterosexual females since they have fewer interruptions to their careers associated with marriage and child bearing. However, this explanation is not applicable to the housing market. If we instead turn our attention to previous research on that market, Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008a) have shown that landlords prefer females to males as tenants. This indicates that our results, at least to some extent, might be explained by the gender composition of the applying couple. Lesbian females do not face discrimination when they search for rental apartments since landlords prefer females to males as tenants. Finally, our results underline the fact that discrimination in the housing market, based on sexual orientation and gender, has various dimensions and is a complex issue. We hope that our results will stimulate further research since additional knowledge in this area is certainly needed. Acknowledgments We thank two anonymous referees, the editor, and seminar participants at the University of Gothenburg and Växjö University for useful suggestions. Ali Ahmed is thankful for the financial support from Jan Wallanders and the Tom Hedelius Foundation. References Ahmed, A.M., Hammarstedt, M., 2008a. Discrimination in the housing market—a field experiment on the Internet. Journal of Urban Economics. doi:10.1016/j.jue.2008.02.004, in press. Ahmed, A.M., Hammarstedt, M., 2008b. Detecting discrimination against homosexuals: evidence from a field experiment on the Internet. Economica. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0335.2008.00692.x, in press.
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Ahmed, A.M., Hammarstedt, M., 2008c. Sexual orientation and earnings in Sweden. University of Gothenburg Working Papers in Economics 285, 12. Allegretto, S.A., Arthur, M.M., 2001. An empirical analysis of homosexual/ heterosexual male earnings differentials: unmarried or unequal? Industrial and Labor Relations Review 54, 631–646. Arabsheibani, G., Marin, A., Wadsworth, J., 2004. In the pink. Homosexualheterosexual wage differentials in the UK. International Journal of Manpower 25, 343–354. Arabsheibani, G., Marin, A., Wadsworth, J., 2005. Gay pay in the UK. Economica 72, 333–347. Badgett, L., 1995. The wage effects of sexual orientation discrimination. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 48, 726–739. Bertrand, M., Mullainthan, S., 2004. Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. American Economic Review 94, 991–1013. Carpusor, A., Loges, W., 2006. Rental discrimination and ethnicity in names. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 36, 934–952. Foster, A.W., Mitchell, F., Fienberg, S.E., 2002. Measuring Housing Discrimination in a National Study: Report of a Workshop. National Academies Press, Washington. Heckman, J., 1998. Detecting discrimination. Journal of Economic Perspectives 12, 101–116. Klawitter, M.M., Flatt, V., 1998. The effects of state and local antidiscrimination policies for sexual orientation. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 17, 658–686.
Ondrich, J., Ross, S., Yinger, J., 2003. Now you see it, now you don’t: why do real estate agents withhold available houses from black customers? Review of Economics and Statistics 85, 854–873. Ondrich, J., Stricker, A., Yinger, J., 1998. Do real estate brokers choose to discriminate? Evidence from the 1989 housing discrimination study. Southern Economic Journal 64, 880–901. Ondrich, J., Stricker, A., Yinger, J., 1999. Do landlords discriminate? The incidence and causes of racial discrimination in rental housing markets. Journal of Housing Economics 8, 185–204. Page, M., 1995. Racial and ethnic discrimination in urban housing markets: evidence from a recent audit study. Journal of Urban Economics 38, 183–206. Plug, E., Berkhout, P., 2004. Effects of sexual preferences on earnings in the Netherlands. Journal of Population Economics 17, 117–131. Ross, S.L., Turner, M.A., 2005. Housing discrimination in metropolitan America: explaining changes between 1989 and 2000. Social Problems 52, 148–152. Roychoudhury, C., Goodman, A., 1996. Evidence of racial discrimination in different dimensions of owner-occupied housing search. Real Estate Economics 24, 161–178. Turner, M., Ross, S., Galster, G., Yinger, J., 2002. Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets: National Results from Phase 1 Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets: National Results from Phase 1 HDS 2000. Urban Institute, Washington. Yinger, J., 1986. Measuring racial discrimination with fair housing audits: caught in the act. American Economic Review 76, 881–893.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Housing Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhe
Are lesbians discriminated against in the rental housing market? Evidence from a correspondence testing experiment Ali M. Ahmed a,b,*, Lina Andersson b, Mats Hammarstedt b a b
Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg, Box 640, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden School of Management and Economics, Växjö University, SE-351 95 Växjö, Sweden
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 21 November 2007 Available online 10 July 2008
JEL classification: C93 J15 J71
a b s t r a c t This paper presents a field experiment, conducted over the Internet, studying possible discrimination against lesbians in the rental housing market in Sweden. We let two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian, apply for vacant rental apartments advertised by landlords on the Internet. We then investigated whether there were differences between the couples in the number of received call-backs, invitations to further contact, and invitations to immediate showings. Our findings show no indication of differential treatment of lesbians by landlords. A discussion relating to earlier findings is provided. Ó 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Sexual orientation Discrimination Field experiments Housing market Internet
1. Introduction During recent decades, field experiments have been used to detect discrimination in the housing markets in several countries. Most of these experiments have focused on discrimination against different ethnic groups, and the fact that ethnic discrimination exists in the housing market in different countries is relatively well documented today (see Yinger, 1986; Page, 1995; Roychoudhury and Goodman, 1996; Ondrich et al., 1998, 1999; Turner et al., 2002; Ondrich et al., 2003; Ross and Turner, 2005; Ahmed and Hammarstedt, 2008a). However, despite the fact that field experiments have been widely used, and despite the fact that discrimination against ethnic groups has been documented, relatively little attention has been paid to
* Corresponding author. Address: School of Management and Economics, Växjö University, SE-351 95 Växjö, Sweden. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (A.M. Ahmed). 1051-1377/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jhe.2008.06.003
discrimination in the housing market based on other characteristics, such as gender and sexual orientation. Up to now, there is only one study that has focused on discrimination in the housing market based on sexual orientation. Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008b) conducted a field experiment in the rental housing market in Sweden and found discrimination against male homosexuals, since a male homosexual couple got far fewer call-backs and invitations to showings of apartments than did a heterosexual couple when they applied for vacant apartments. However, no study has addressed discrimination against lesbians in the housing market. We have reason to believe that male homosexuals and lesbians are treated differently in that market. One argument for this is that previous research has documented discrimination against male homosexuals in the labor market, while there is little evidence for labor market discrimination against lesbians (see, e.g., Badgett, 1995; Klawitter and Flatt, 1998; Allegretto and Arthur, 2001; Arabsheibani et al., 2004, 2005; Plug and Berkhout, 2004; Ahmed and Hammarstedt, 2008c). Another argument
A.M. Ahmed et al. / Journal of Housing Economics 17 (2008) 234–238
for us to believe that lesbians and male homosexuals are treated differently by landlords is that previous research has shown that landlords prefer females to males as tenants (Ahmed and Hammarstedt, 2008a). Against this background, the aim of this paper is to study if lesbians are discriminated against when they apply for vacant apartments in the rental housing market in Sweden. The study is conducted with the Internet as a research platform. Two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian, openly signaling their sexual orientation, apply for vacant rental apartments advertised by landlords on the Internet in Sweden. Lesbians are thus identified as women living with partners of the same sex. We explore the incidence of discrimination by observing the choice by landlords to email back and invite applicants for further contacts and/ or to a showing of the housing unit. If landlords, or their tenants, have tastes for discrimination, or stereotypes, and can distinguish the lesbian from the heterosexual couple, the result may be lower call-back rates for the lesbian couple. We may also expect fewer positive responses and invitations to showings to the lesbian than to the heterosexual couple. Up to now, only three studies have used the Internet as a research platform in order to detect discrimination in the housing market. Carpusor and Loges (2006) and Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008a) were the first studies that used the Internet as a research field. The focus in those papers, however, was on discrimination against ethnic minorities. The closest paper to the present study is the study mentioned above, by Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008b). They applied for vacant apartments on the Internet and studied discrimination against gay men. Hence, there is an empty space in the literature regarding the treatment of lesbians in the housing market. The present paper fills this gap. In line with research into discrimination against lesbians in the labor market, our results show no indication of discrimination against lesbians in the rental housing market in Sweden. The differences in call-back rates, invitations for further contact, and invitations to immediate showings between the lesbian and the heterosexual couple were negligible. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: The next section presents the experimental details, Section 3 reports the results, and Section 4 concludes. 2. Experimental design We conducted our experiment on the Internet following the design of Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008a,b). Using the Internet gave us the advantage of being able to use written applications rather than personal approaches, thereby avoiding the potential problems that may arise from personal appearances (see Heckman, 1998). Experiments with written applications have previously been used in the labor market; see, for example, Bertrand and Mullainthan (2004). With written applications, we controlled for all possible nuisances that may bias the experiment and only changed the variable we were interested in studying: sexual orientation.1
1 For further discussion about methodological issues and about the advantages of written applications, see Foster et al. (2002), Bertrand and Mullainthan (2004), and Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008a).
235
We signaled sexual orientation by letting two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian, apply to rent vacant apartments. The experiment was carried out between August 23 and September 6, 2007. During this period we applied to all available apartments with two rooms or more on Blocket.se. This is one of the largest buy-and-sell sites in Sweden where the housing market is an active segment. Companies and private landlords announce vacant apartments, and it is free of cost to respond to any of the ads. Without any restrictions regarding location and rental cost, we applied, as a heterosexual couple and as a lesbian couple, to all available apartments during the period. However, we eliminated any ad where applicants were asked to call, forward a letter through ordinary post, or appear in person. Most of the advertisers, though, preferred to be contacted by email. We also eliminated all ads stating that they only wished responses from a particular gender. We recorded the time, date, heading of the ad, geographical area, whether the landlord was a private person or a company, name of the landlord (when available), gender, whether the landlord had a foreign-sounding name, the number of rooms in the apartment, and the rental cost per month. When we received responses from the landlords, we recorded whether landlords emailed back or not. If they emailed back, then we recorded whether the landlords rejected the application or if they invited further contacts and asked for more information about the couple. Finally, we recorded whether the landlord invited the couple to a showing without any further inquiries. To minimize inconvenience to landlords, invitations to showings were rapidly and politely declined. Before we could run the experiment and apply for vacant apartments, we needed to create identities for two fictitious couples, one heterosexual and one lesbian. There was no need for telephone numbers and postal addresses since all correspondence was accomplished through email. The only information required when answering an ad was a person’s name and an email address to which a landlord could reply. For the lesbian couple we used the names Maria and Pernilla, and for the heterosexual couple we used the names Anna and Per. These are typical Swedish names and are genderunique. We also used typical Swedish last names for the persons who were the corresponding applicants. We let Maria be the corresponding applicant for herself and Pernilla, and we let Anna be the corresponding applicant for herself and Per. We chose to let Anna be the corresponding applicant for the heterosexual couple because we wanted a female to be the corresponding applicant in both cases. Thus, our two experimental fictitious couples were: Maria Andersson and Pernilla, the lesbian couple, and Anna Johansson and Per, the heterosexual couple. Next we registered email addresses for the corresponding applicants, Maria and Anna. To minimize the risk of being exposed, we created email accounts with different email providers.2 Another important part in the experimental design was to generate application letters. In order to let both couples
2 Email accounts were created under the addresses maria.andersson@ post.com, and [email protected].
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apply to all ads and, again, minimize the risk of being exposed, we generated four different formulations of an application letter with similar content. We put together concise letters that eliminated many undesired sources of variation. The only thing that differed between couples was whether they were heterosexual or lesbian. The letters clearly indicated that the applicants were a couple. For example, one version of the application letter for the lesbian couple was:3 Hi, We would like to sign up as interested in the announced apartment. We are a couple without children (nonsmokers, and no pets) searching for an apartment with 2–4 rooms. Maria is 31 years old and is a nurse and Pernilla is 33 years old and is a banker. Good references. No payment complaints. Regards, Maria & Pernilla There might be several reasons for why a cohabitant couple applies to a vacant apartment together, i.e., signing the application with both names. One obvious reason is that by applying together and mentioning that both are employed, couples signal that they have two stable incomes and thereby have an advantage compared to singles. As regards lesbians, one might, of course, argue that they can minimize the risk of being discriminated by concealing their sexuality. One way of concealing sexual orientation is to let only one of the lesbian applicants apply for apartments. However, as argued by Badgett (1995), hiding one’s sexual orientation might cause anxiety and stress, and therefore, we believe that individuals will not hide their sexual orientation when they apply for apartments. Obviously, the couples never applied for the same apartment with letters that were identical in the wording. Each of the four formulations was used 25% of the time for each couple. We also controlled for the order of the applications from our two couples. Thus, half of the time the heterosexual couple was first to apply and half of the time the lesbian couple was the first to put in an answer. The time delay between applications to the same apartment was between a half hour and 1 h. Before we turn to our results, one should be aware of the fact that the Internet is only one of several channels that could be used for a rental housing search. Other common channels are newspaper ads and social networks, which we clearly did not include in our study. This exclusion could have qualitatively influenced our results, if the reality is that lesbian applicants typically use other search channels than heterosexual applicants. Also, the results might have been affected if landlords who advertise on the Internet discriminate either more or less than landlords who use other channels for advertising apartments for rent. Also, related to the previous problem, we must confront an issue concerning how representative our data is. In this study, we considered only privately-owned apartments. Almost half of the rental dwellings in Sweden are, how-
3
The other versions of the application letters are available upon request.
ever, owned by public housing companies (non-profit organizations owned by local authorities). Publicly-owned apartments are not advertised on the Internet; instead, the application and search processes for these units are handled by the municipalities in which they are located. Compared to other nations, Sweden has a large share of rental dwellings that are handled by local authorities. One should keep this in mind when drawing conclusions from the results. 3. Results We applied to 423 apartments for each couple. Table 1 presents the average call-back rates by sexual orientation, given in percentages. Included in the brackets beside each rate is the actual number of cases out of the total of 423. The first row in Table 1 presents the percentage of applications that resulted in a contact, regardless of whether it was a positive or a negative response. The second row gives the percentage of applications that resulted in a positive response from the landlord, that is, cases where the landlord invited the applicant to further contact. An example of this is a request to provide the landlord with additional information about the couple, or to a showing of the apartment. The third row shows the percentage of applications that resulted in a direct invitation to a showing. Thus, the category, ‘‘Invited to further contacts or to a showing” is a broader definition of a positive call-back than the category, ‘‘Invited to a showing”. Table 1 shows that both couples had a 49% chance that their applications would result in a contact. For both couples, almost 45% of their applications led to positive callbacks in the sense that they were invited by the landlord either to provide further information about themselves or to a showing of the apartment. Finally, in 27% of the cases, the heterosexual couple got an immediate invitation by the landlord to a showing. The corresponding figure for the lesbian couple was 25%. As indicated in Table 1, none of the minor differences in these respects between the lesbian couple and the heterosexual couple are statistically significant. In Table 1, we tabulated the distribution of call-backs at the applicant level. In Table 2, we instead computed the
Table 1 Percent (number) of applications that led to a contact, percent (number) of applications that led to an invitation to further contacts or to a showing, and percent (number) of applications that led to an invitation to a showing Sample size
Hetero
Lesbian
Ratio
McNemar test
Contact
423
p = 1.000
423
48.9 (207) 44.4 (188)
1.00
Invited to further contacts or to a showing Invited to a showing
48.9 (207) 44.9 (190)
1.01
p = 0.883
26.5 (112)
25.1 (106)
1.06
p = 0.362
423
The p-values reported are for a two-sided McNemar test of symmetry between the proportion of landlords that favored the heterosexual couple and the proportion that favored the lesbian couple. We also conducted the binominal sign test, resulting in the same p-values.
A.M. Ahmed et al. / Journal of Housing Economics 17 (2008) 234–238 Table 2 Distribution of call-back rates in percent (number of cases within parentheses) Sample size
Both no
Both yes
Hetero
Lesbian
McNemar test
Contact
423 184
43.5 (184) 90.2 (166)
5.4 (23) 1.1 (2)
5.4 (23) 0.0 (0)
p = 1.000
Invited to further contacts or to a showing Invited to a showing
45.6 (193) 8.7 (16)
39.2 (65)
56.6 (94)
2.4 (4)
1.8 (3)
p = 1.000
166
p = 0.500
The p-values reported are for a two-sided McNemar test of symmetry between the proportion of landlords that favored the heterosexual couple and the proportion that favored the lesbian couple. We also conducted the binominal sign test, resulting in the same p-values.
percentage of landlords that did not respond to either of the couples (given by the column ‘‘Both no”), the percentage of landlords that responded to both of the couples (given by the column ‘‘Both yes”), the percentage of landlords that favored the heterosexual couple (given by the column ‘‘Hetero”), and the percentage of landlords that were in favor of the lesbian couple (given by the column ‘‘Lesbian”). The heterosexual couple is considered as the favored one when the landlord responded to them but not to the lesbian couple. If only the lesbian couple got a response, then they are judged as favored. What is of interest in Table 2 is to observe if there is symmetry between the proportion of landlords that favors the heterosexual couple and the proportion that approves of the lesbian couple. Again, for all three measurements— ‘‘Contact”, ‘‘Invited to further contacts or to a showing”, and ‘‘Invited to a showing”—we found no statistically significant differences in how the landlords treated the lesbian couple and the heterosexual couple.4 4. Discussion In economics, little is known about how individuals’ successfulness in different markets is related to their sexual orientation. The most plausible reason for this is a lack of data where sexual preferences can be identified. There is, however, a small number of papers reporting investigations of the effect of sexual orientation in the labor market and in the housing market. As regards the labor market, there are studies that have shown that homosexual men may be subject to discrimination in pay, in the sense that they earn less than heterosexual men (e.g., Badgett, 1995; Klawitter and Flatt, 1998; Allegretto and Arthur,
4 We have also estimated probit specifications for the probability of recieving a contact, being invited to further contacts or to a showing, as well as being invited to a showing. No statistically significant differences were found between lesbians and heterosexuals in those specifications. Each specification controlled for the number of rooms and the rent of the apartment, whether the landlord was a company or a private person, if the apartment was localized in a metropolitan area or not, the gender of the landlord, and if the landlord had an immigrant background. We also experimented with different interaction terms, which turned out to be insignificant. The probit estimates are available upon request.
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2001; Arabsheibani et al., 2004, 2005; Plug and Berkhout, 2004; Ahmed and Hammarstedt, 2008c). However, none of these studies have found similar results for lesbians. In contrast, some of the studies have found that the earnings of lesbians are even higher than for comparable heterosexual females (e.g., Arabsheibani et al., 2004, 2005; Plug and Berkhout, 2004). In the Swedish housing market, Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008b) have documented that homosexual male couples face discrimination when they apply for rental apartments, which manifests itself in their getting less response and fewer invitations to showings from the landlords than heterosexual couples. Since the results of studies of the labor market suggest that lesbians may be faced with experiences that are different from those of homosexual men, we found it worthwhile to engage in a study, reported here, of lesbians’ successfulness in the rental housing market. Our observations show no indication of discrimination against lesbians on that market in Sweden, since the differences in call-back rates, invitations to further contact, and invitations to immediate showings between the lesbian and the heterosexual couple of our study were negligible. Thus, our results presented in this paper are in line with results that have been obtained in labor market research regarding discrimination against lesbians. One important question that then presents itself is why homosexual males are discriminated, but not homosexual females. As regards the labor market, it has been argued that lesbian females are doing better than heterosexual females since they have fewer interruptions to their careers associated with marriage and child bearing. However, this explanation is not applicable to the housing market. If we instead turn our attention to previous research on that market, Ahmed and Hammarstedt (2008a) have shown that landlords prefer females to males as tenants. This indicates that our results, at least to some extent, might be explained by the gender composition of the applying couple. Lesbian females do not face discrimination when they search for rental apartments since landlords prefer females to males as tenants. Finally, our results underline the fact that discrimination in the housing market, based on sexual orientation and gender, has various dimensions and is a complex issue. We hope that our results will stimulate further research since additional knowledge in this area is certainly needed. Acknowledgments We thank two anonymous referees, the editor, and seminar participants at the University of Gothenburg and Växjö University for useful suggestions. Ali Ahmed is thankful for the financial support from Jan Wallanders and the Tom Hedelius Foundation. References Ahmed, A.M., Hammarstedt, M., 2008a. Discrimination in the housing market—a field experiment on the Internet. Journal of Urban Economics. doi:10.1016/j.jue.2008.02.004, in press. Ahmed, A.M., Hammarstedt, M., 2008b. Detecting discrimination against homosexuals: evidence from a field experiment on the Internet. Economica. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0335.2008.00692.x, in press.
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