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CZECHING OSWALD'S PUZZLE: EVIDENCE FOR THE HOMEOWNERSHIP-UNEMPLOYMENT NEXUS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Dominik Stroukal, Daniel Stastny

ABSTRACT. The paper explores the relationship between the homeownership and unemployment by using individual survey data (EU-SILC) for the Czech Republic from 2008-2011 and provides primarily some empirical evidence on what is titled as Oswald's puzzle: the fact is that, while on the regional (aggregated) level, the homeownership-unemployment nexus is positive (Oswald's thesis), the same relationship becomes negative once investigated on the individual level. The authors use various probit models with individual-level and combined data and concluded that 1) Czech data do confirm the existence of Oswald's puzzle (on the individual level, homeowners are less likely to be unemployed), 2) the homeownership/unemployment nexus in the Czech Republic exhibits patterns comparable to the other countries, and 3) women and men are different in how their unemployment and homeownership are related, men are showing consistently stronger associations of these variables .

KEYWORDS: homeownership, unemployment, gender differences, mobility.

JEL classification: J01, J6, R23.