As the US population grows more diverse, it is increasingly important to capture how different racial/ethnic groups fare in the housing market. But the standard way of categorizing households may not fully capture the racial/ethnic diversity that exists. The typical convention for categorizing households by race and ethnicity simply uses the race/ethnicity of the individual identified as the “householder” (that is, one of the people on the lease or deed) without considering the identities of other household members. This method has its practical benefits, but it does not recognize multi-race households, with members whose races differ from that of the householder. In a new paper, "Recognizing Racial Diversity Within Households: Implications for Housing Research," we use the race/ethnicity of all adults to identify and explore the characteristics of 13.5 million multi-race households in the US.

Using the 2022 American Community Survey, we identify and define multi-race households as those with adult members of different races and ethnicities. We use the term multi-race in the paper to distinguish the categorization of the household from that of multiracial people. We were interested in multi-race households for two reasons. First, we wanted to understand the degree to which our standard method of classifying households underestimates racial and ethnic diversity by completely missing multi-race households. Second, we wanted to know if multi-race households had different experiences in the housing market compared to single-race households and if the combination of different races and ethnicities within multi-race households mattered. Black and Hispanic single-race households, for example, experience discrimination during the housing search and when applying for apartments or mortgages while white households benefit from distinct advantages. We especially wondered if a white resident in the household reduces the barriers to ownership often experienced by Black and Hispanic residents. 

The vast majority of households consist of people of a single race, and in these cases the traditional householder method accurately captures the race/ethnicity of the household by default. Yet, including the race/ethnicity of all adult members of a household expands the amount and type of diversity captured by the traditional householder method. Indeed, 13.5 million households (10.4 percent) are multi-race, as they contain at least two adults of different races/ethnicities. Among these multi-race households nearly half, 6.7 million (5.1 percent of all households), appear in traditional statistics as white households despite having a person of color present (Table 1).  

Table 1: About 6.7 million multi-race households are identified as white under the traditional method of assigning household race/ethnicity 

Notes: Multi-race households include at least two adults who are not the same race/ethnicity. White householders are non-Hispanic. 
Source: Author tabulations of US Census Bureau, 2022 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates. 

Multi-race households exhibit substantial diversity in their racial/ethnic composition, and among them the adult members have 100 unique combinations of races/ethnicities. However, there are three predominant types. Just over two-thirds of multi-race households are either Hispanic-white, multiracial (person)-white, or Asian-white, and white people make up the largest share of people in multi-race households. However, white people are the least likely to live in a multi-race household, with just 8 percent living with people of other races/ethnicities. Conversely, multiracial people are the most likely to live in a multi-race household at 55 percent. About a third of American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander people also live in multi-race households.  

In terms of their characteristics, multi-race households are younger and more likely to be unrelated roommates compared to single-race households (Table 2). Multi-race households are much more likely to have members in their prime working years (ages 25 to 54). More than three-quarters (77 percent) of multi-race households have at least one person aged 25–54, 10 percentage points higher than single-race households. And while they have a similar number of adult and child members, multi-race households are more likely to have multiple potential earners of prime working age. As a result, median household incomes are about 12 percent higher in multi-race households. Relatedly, roommate arrangements are more common among multi-race households (19 percent) as compared to single-race households (9 percent).  

Table 2: Multi-race households are more likely to be unrelated roommates and to be in their prime working years than single-race households

Notes: Only households with at least two adults are included. Multi-race households include at least two adults who are not the same race/ethnicity.
Source: Author tabulations of US Census Bureau, 2022 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.

Lastly, we find that housing outcomes, such as homeownership and housing cost burdens, differ both between multi- and single-race households and within multi-race households, depending on the races and ethnicities present. In particular, homeownership rates are generally higher and cost burden rates lower for multi-race households with a white adult, possibly reflecting the systemic advantages white people experience in education, employment, and housing. Conversely, multi-race households comprised of both a Black adult and a Hispanic adult have the lowest homeownership rate and one of the highest cost burden rates, a fact that mirrors the experiences of single-race Black and Hispanic households and further reflects the significant discrimination and barriers that Black and Hispanic people face in the US. Although we do not control for other factors and cannot establish causality, these exploratory findings point to varied experiences with the housing market for people of different race/ethnicities. 

The results presented in the paper provide a limited example of the potential analyses made possible by this method of categorizing households by race. More comprehensive household race and ethnicity categorizations could shed further light on the relationship between race and ethnicity and housing outcomes.