“Throughout the industrialized world, unemployment and home ownership go hand in hand”

“Here’s an odd fact,” Landsburg writes. “Throughout the industrialized world, unemployment and home ownership go hand in hand.” Unemployment is low in Switzerland, where renting is the norm, and high in Spain, where most people own their homes. The pattern also holds within differentregions of individual  countries, and it persists over time. As homeownership rises, so does joblessness. Landsburg considers a couple ofharmless explanations — coincidence, bad statistics — but also somecausal ones. For instance, people who own their homes may be lesswilling than renters to move after they lose a job, making it more difficult to find new work. Another possibility is that countries orstates with a lot of regulations, like rent control and strict labor laws, may be simultaneously encouraging home buying and discouraginghiring. “It’s not easy to sort out causes from effects,” he says. But“it’s not always impossible either.”