Abstract
Fair housing audits are an important tool for measuring racial and ethnic discrimination in housing markets, so they are widely used for policy purposes in the U.S. Each audit consists of a visit to a real estate agent by a minority individual and a majority individual with equal qualifications. The audit data are used to measure the incidence of discrimination and totest hypotheses about its causes.
This paper applies this survey technique to age discrimination in Japanese rental housing markets. Using data from the 2001 Osaka Audits that was conducted in eight cities in Osaka prefecture between Feb. 26 and Mar. 30, this paper analyzes the level and causes of the discrimination encountered by older persons during rental housing searches. The estimated level of discrimination is high: The number of available housing units about which older housing seekers are told is 30 percent fewer than the number of available housing units about which younger housing seekers are told. Econometric tests suggest that stereotyping about older renters' ability to pay and rental terms influences agent behavior.
