Housing vulnerability in old age

• In Event: 4266 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 9. Social Engagement and Living Arrangements

Abstract

There is a preference among older adults to experience what has been called “aging in place”. This concept comprises the continuity of the elderly in society. Is also considered as a political orientation aimed at cutting expenses compared to other options or residential alternatives. This issue is particularly interesting in the Spanish context (Europe), considered as a familial based welfare system that assumes that this dimension corresponds to the family.
Nonetheless, housing conditions occupied by an aging population are little known, assuming that there are no housing problems among the elderly.
This paper intends to know the experience of aging in place paying specific attention to the unresolved needs in occupied housing and its distribution among the elderly.
In order to carry out the research, and drawing on the information of last housing census, an index is developed, specifically designed to measure the residential difficulties experienced by the elderly. A comparative analysis is made based on three key dimensions in the residential question: socio-demographic, territorial aspects, and the one regarding behavioral and cohabitation aspects.
The results are showing us that, in the logic of this integrating process of old age, the characteristics of occupied housing become a major impediment. In fact, the quantitative analysis reveals a situation not only of strong inequality but also in which a large number of people experience serious problems of habitability inside their homes that hinder their permanence in society and point to the malfunctioning of the housing and redistributive system. These situations of proven exclusion are not presented as a product of old age, but as the culmination of residential trajectories characterized by inequality.
Because of the results, we can assume that housing policies in Spain are not giving a response to residential needs in old age, being the main impediment to their social integration.

Author

• Irene Lebrusan, Harvard university