• Corpus ID: 202667531

Housing Discrimination and the Pollution Exposure Gap in the United States

@inproceedings{Christensen2019HousingDA,
  title={Housing Discrimination and the Pollution Exposure Gap in the United States},
  author={Peter Ove Christensen and Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri and Christopher D. Timmins},
  year={2019}
}

• P. Christensen, Ignacio Sarmiento-Barbieri, C. Timmins
• Published 2019
• Economics

Neighborhood pollution exposures can have significant effects on health outcomes, disproportionately affecting minority households. In this study, we combine experimental evidence on discrimination from a correspondence design in the rental housing market with observational evidence from a panel detailing the movements of 1.9 million renter households to study the extent to which discrimination constrains the housing choices of minorities in ways that contribute to a race gap in pollution exposures. We find that renters with African American and Hispanic/LatinX names receive the exact same response rates to inquiries made for housing within a tight radius of plants that emit toxic pollutants (high exposure locations), while receiving 19% and 26% lower response rates at lower exposure locations in the same markets. We find that African American and Hispanic/LatinX renters in these markets move into high exposure neighborhoods at higher rates and move out at lower rates than similar white households, resulting in higher exposures to toxics and particularly during periods of pregnancy. These differences result in a 23% higher likelihood of in utero exposures to toxic emissions for children born in Hispanic/LatinX households and 14.4% higher likelihoods for children born in African American households.