Race, Gender, and Statistical Representation

Predatory Mortgage Lending and the US Community Reinvestment Movement

Bibliographic Data

ID4138901
AuthorsElvin Wyly (0009-0007-7109-412X, University of British Columbia, corresponding author), Elvin K Wyly (University of British Columbia), Mona Atia (0000-0002-3805-1124, University of Washington, corresponding author), Elizabeth Lees (0009-0006-1943-2024), Elizabeth M Lee (0000-0003-4115-616X, University of British Columbia, corresponding author), Elizabeth Lee (0000-0001-5404-1447, University of British Columbia), Pablo Mendez (0000-0001-9249-0884, University of British Columbia), Pablo Martí­n Méndez (0000-0001-6026-9747, University of British Columbia, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume39
Issue9
Pages2139-2166
Publication date2007-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/a38224
OpenAlexW2108655173
LanguageEN
Citations received25
References cited40

American mortgage markets, once arenas of discrimination by exclusion, now operate as venues of segmentation and discrimination by inclusion: credit is widely available, but its terms vary enormously. One market segment involves sophisticated predatory practices in which certain groups of borrowers are targeted for high-cost credit that strips out home equity and worsens the risks of delinquency, default, and foreclosure. Unfortunately, it has become more difficult to measure inequalities of predatory lending: race-ethnicity and gender are 'disappearing' from the main public data source used to study, organize, and mobilize on issues of lending inequalities. In this paper, we present a mixed-methods case study of statistical representation of homeowners and homebuyers marginalized by race, ethnicity, and gender. A theoretical examination of official data-collection practices is followed by a discussion of alternative meanings of racial-ethnic and gender nondisclosure. Interviews with a sample of homeowners and homebuyers in the Washington, DC, area reveal some respondent ambivalence about the details of data-collection practices, but provide no consistent support for the idea that nonreporting is solely a matter of individual choice. Econometric analyses indicate that nondisclosure is driven primarily by lending-industry practices, with the strongest disparate impacts in African-American suburbs. Predatory lending is producing ambivalent spaces of racial-ethnic and gender invisibility, requiring new strategies in the reinvestment movement

Ambivalence · Business · Demographic economics · Economics · Ethnic group · Foreclosure · Political science · Respondent · Housing Market and Economics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Psychology · Social Psychology · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies · Finance

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