The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) population in the United States has increased significantly in the last 40 years, from 3.6 million in 1980 to 18.8 million in 2019. And since 2000, the AAPI population has experienced the fastest growth of any racial or ethnic group in the nation.

Despite structural barriers to homeownership, AAPI homeownership rates have also collectively increased since 1980. But people often overlook the substantial homeownership differences among AAPIs. These disparities reflect diverse experiences within the AAPI community, which encompasses people from more than 40 countries.

By 2060, the AAPI population is expected to surpass 38 million. Before then, policymakers and researchers will need to better understand the homeownership disparities among this diverse community if they want to eliminate unique barriers each subgroup faces to accessing homeownership and building wealth.

We chose to focus our analysis on the six Asian ethnic groups by country of origin with the largest populations in the United States: Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese.

We also created two separate groups, “Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders” and “other Asian ethnic groups,” to categorize the remaining Asian ethnic groups. We did this because of limited data on these two groups, but we recognize that lumping groups into categories like “other” can erase the experiences of certain communities. Much research excludes smaller and marginalized AAPI groups, and we believe it’s critical that future research and policy conversations address the often-overlooked challenges these underrepresented communities face. We hope this post can serve as encouragement.

Disparities in AAPI homeownership rates vary depending on each ethnic group’s economic status, history in the US, citizenship status, and much more. The following facts about each group we studied provide a glimpse into the reasons behind these homeownership differences. But again, they are not comprehensive, and much more research is needed to understand their causes and effects and to paint a full picture of AAPI homeownership in the US.

Read the full article about homeownership AAPI communities by Daniel Pang and Jung Hyun Choi at Urban Institute.