Early results of a gender-bias study in the Chicago area involving mortgage lending show troubling patterns, the researchers said.
The Woodstock Institute has studied about 257,000 mortgage and refinancing applications from a six county area around Chicago from 2010 and intend to study four additional years worth of applications, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.
However, the organization said it had already found that applications involving a wide variety of income levels and lending amounts that have a woman listed as the primary borrower and a man listed as co-borrower were 24 percent less likely to have a loan approved compared to applications that listed the man first.