Growing old in non-metropolitan regions: intentions and realities from South Australia and Northern Ireland

Abstract

Residential mobility trends have created patterns of accumulating and congregating retirement populations in non metropolitan regions. Despite the diversity of non metropolitan regions, many share challenges of service provision, transport and housing outcomes for specific cohorts – including older people. These challenges may be further exacerbated by changing expectations. Each generation enters retirement with expectations that differ from those who have retired before them. The cohort aged between 50 and 65 years is no different. Despite a track record of altering all significant social institutions as it has moved through the life course, little is known about the housing needs of this cohort in retirement. This thesis examines the housing needs of those in, or nearing, retirement in non metropolitan regions and questions how these vary for places of accumulating and congregating retirement populations in South Australia and Northern Ireland. In this research, housing has a number of dimensions including dwelling, locality, individual aspirations and social networks. Housing needs are shaped by changes, anticipated or actual, associated with new stages in the life course – including retirement. As residential needs are altered, households readjust their environment to accommodate these changes. This readjustment may result in changes to the current dwelling, a change in dwelling within the same locality or a move away from that locality. The residential decision making process at and near retirement is used to investigate the housing needs of the retiring cohort. Five aspects of housing were considered in the thesis, beginning with an exploration of the meanings that this cohort attach to residence and the lifestyle aspirations they have for retirement. The decision to move or stay put was the third, but equally important, dimension of housing needs that was examined. Spatially, it furthers the understanding of the residential mobility decisions being made in retirement. In addition, the decision to stay put is also associated with the most widely held understanding of this cohort, the desire to ‘age in place’. The discourse around ageing in place is confused by multiple definitions. A more functional definition was therefore created by separating the two major components – growing old in one’s own community and the ability to remain independent in one’s own home. The fourth aspect built upon participant intentions to either move or stay put in and for retirement. It examined the housing factors evaluated in this decision. The final aspect drew together the housing needs of this cohort and considered the implications that they might have for service providers and the experience of growing old in non metropolitan regions