Large study on the housing preferences of the elderly in smaller municipalities
What can make older people in smaller municipalities move from their houses to make room for younger families with children? What is socially sustainable housing outside major urban areas? A new research project at the IBF wants to shed light on these questions.
The households that consider settling in smaller municipalities tend to have preferences for single-family houses with access to green areas and gardens. However, these homes are largely owned by the elderly. Any extensive new production of housing is not realistic and in order to create opportunities for families with children to move in, the elderly house owners must be willing to move.
In the Formas project Elderly housing and relocations in smaller towns and rural areas in Sweden - socially sustainable forms of housing, relocation chains and housing provision in small municipalities, the researchers will investigate how such relocation chains can come about together with Storfors municipality and the local property owner, Björkåsen Housing Foundation. The project will also study how socially sustainable housing for the elderly can be ensured, at the same time that a more efficient use of an existing housing stock can generate an economically and socially sustainable relocation within smaller municipalities in Sweden.
– These municipalities often struggle with declining population numbers and increasingly costly community services. We want to investigate how the municipalities can retain an older population and at the same time stimulate the movement of younger households. The research project is based on the concept of socially sustainable living environments; municipalities' opportunities to, together with civil society actors in particular, maintain the service and social network required for a good life for everyone in a municipality, says project manager Andreas Alm Fjellborg, researcher in Human Geography at IBF.
In essence, Andreas Alm Fjellborg will analyze the moving patterns of the elderly through a quantitative study, where he uses register data to examine how overall aspects such as the economy, housing price trends and individual factors (such as education level, income and household composition) affect the elderly's propensity to move. Questions he wants answers to are how mobility in the housing market for people over 55 has developed over time, to what extent mobility among the elderly is affected by changes in the taxation system for real estate, and where and to what extent the elderly move from single-family homes to apartment buildings.
In addition, he wants to find out what people over 65 find attractive in housing, both in terms of single-family houses and multi-family houses located in the central location of smaller municipalities. This is done with qualitative methods such as interviews and focus groups. With the help of the material, Andreas Alm Fjellborg wants to analyze how the work with the stock of multi-family houses can affect moving chains within the municipality.
– The starting point is the feeling and perception of belonging, sense of place and many elderly people's desire to age at home. The research questions will be about what the elderly perceive as attractive in housing outside major cities, how social networks are formed in smaller municipalities and how municipalities and civil society can strengthen social networks and socially sustainable living environments, says Andreas Alm Fjellborg.