The Feminization of Foreclosure

During the Great Recession that began in 2007, news reports portrayed housing foreclosure as an equal opportunity crisis, overlooking the fact that women—especially women of color—were disproportionately affected.

Lise Saugeres, a sociologist who authored the 2009 article, “‘We Do Get Stereotyped’: Gender, Housing, Work and Social Disadvantage” (Housing, Theory, and Society), argues that gender ideology still controls men’s and women’s housing experiences. African American women, Latinas, single mothers, and the elderly were targeted during the subprime lending boom by eager lenders, who viewed them as less financially savvy. These groups were more likely to get loans that had balloon payments, high fees, and adjustable rates, and 80 percent of these loans resulted in default.

The most vulnerable women lived in racially segregated neighborhoods. Sociologists Douglas Massey and Jacob Rugh, in a 2010 American Sociological Review article, “Racial Segregation and the American Foreclosure Crisis,” found that African American neighborhoods in 100 U.S. cities were targeted for risky loans, leading to unusually high foreclosure rates in these communities. Since black women are the primary homeowners in their families, they suffered particular hardship. Not only did African American women become subprime prey, they were also more than twice as likely to be offered such loans as white men with equivalent incomes.

These discriminatory practices placed the groups most threatened by poverty—women of color and female-headed households—at additional risk.