But research to date suggests that such “house lock” has probably not had more than a small effect on structural unemployment thus far.7 As noted earlier, migration rates have been falling for some time. But the declines during the recession have not been larger for homeowners than for renters.
Nor has migration declined more in areas where workers are more likely to have underwater mortgages because of particularly large declines in housing prices. A second factor, the one most often cited in support of the structural unemployment hypothesis, is skills mismatch.