Home Ownership and Location Preferences in a Minneapolis Sample

The rather simple investigation reported here is part of a larger study of residential mobility, in the course of which detailed housing histories were gathered by interview for 574 stable families. A "stable" family was defined as one established by marriage before April 1940, resident in Minneapolis in April 1940 and in February 1948, with male head and wife both present in the household in February 1948. The original research plan called for a purposive sample stratified on the basis of six I940 characteristics for which census data were available: Tenure, Nativity of head, Race, Years of schooling of head, Number of children under age io, and Major occupational group of head. A peculiar problem of ex post facto sampling soon became apparent. A representative cross-section of the 1940 family population would necessarily have social characteristics somewhat different from that fraction of the same population which was destined to remain stable for most of the ensuing decade. It was therefore decided to maintain strict control only on major oc