Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T16:50:58.590Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Changing residential mobility rates of older people in Sweden

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2011

EVA ANDERSSON  and
MARIANNE ABRAMSSON
EVA ANDERSSON*
Affiliation:
Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
MARIANNE ABRAMSSON
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Welfare Studies, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden.
*
Address for correspondence: Eva Andersson, Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The lifestyle of the baby boomers as retirees has been assumed to differ from older cohorts due to them being financially more stable and having grown up during the welfare state expansion. Many baby boomers live in large houses with gardens that require maintenance and labour. Recent studies have indicated that a growing share of those born in the 1940s in Sweden express a wish to change residence at retirement or in old age. A need to verify such results statistically was identified to confirm whether there has been an increase in residential mobility among older people. As a result, moves that took place during 2001–06 of the total cohort born in the 1940s were compared to similar moves by those born in the 1930s, ten years earlier during 1991–96, i.e. those aged 57–66 in 1996 and 2006. The study used a register database, Geoswede, containing the entire Swedish population. The study showed increased residential mobility rates among the 1940s cohort compared to the cohort born in the 1930s. However, explanations for the differences between the cohorts were not evident.

Keywords

residential mobilitybaby boomersolder peoplehousingSweden
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 32 , Issue 6 , August 2012 , pp. 963 - 982
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramsson, M. 2003. Housing careers in a changing welfare state. PhD thesis, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.Google Scholar
Abramsson, M. 2008. Housing careers in a changing welfare state – a Swedish cohort study. Housing Theory and Society, 25, 4, 231–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abramsson, M. and Andersson, E. 2012. Residential mobility patterns of older people – leaving the house for an apartment. Housing Studies, 27, 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abramsson, M. and Berg, T. 2004. Hur bor och hur vill rekordgenerationen bo? Resultat från en intervjustudie [Housing situation and housing expectations of the record generation? Results from interviews]. In Malmberg, B., Abramsson, M., Magnusson, L. and Berg, T. (eds), Från småhus till allmännyttan [From Owner Occupation to Municipal Rental Housing]. Volume 10, The Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm, 61–78.Google Scholar
Abramsson, M. and Niedomysl, T. 2008. Äldre personers flyttningar och boendepreferenser [Residential Mobility and Housing Preferences Among Older People]. Report, SOU 2008:113, The Institute for Future Studies for the Committee of Inquiry for Housing for Old People, Swedish Parliament, Stockholm, Appendix B.Google Scholar
Andersson, E. 2004 a. Befolkningsprognoser om äldre i Sverige med utblick mot övriga Europa [Population projections on older people in Sweden and looking towards Europe]. In Fransson, U. (ed.), Äldrelandskapet. Äldres boende och flyttningar [An Elderly Landscape. Older People's Housing and Residential Mobility]. Research Report, Volume 2004:1, The Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Gävle, Sweden, 413–424.Google Scholar
Andersson, E. 2004 b. Sveriges äldrelandskap [The Swedish landscape of elderly]. In Fransson, U. (ed.), Äldrelandskapet. Äldres boende och flyttningar [An Elderly Landscape. Older People's Housing and Residential Mobility]. Research Report, Volume 2004:1, The Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Gävle, Sweden, 41–60.Google Scholar
Andersson, E. 2007. Sweden: to own or to rent. In Elsinga, M., Decker, P. D., Teller, N. and Toussaint, J. (eds), Home Ownership Beyond Asset and Security. Perceptions of Housing Related Security and Insecurity in Eight European Countries. IOS Press, Amsterdam, 225–57.Google Scholar
Andersson, E., Naumanen, P., Ruonavaara, H. and Turner, B. 2007. Housing, socio-economic security and risks. A qualitative comparison of household attitudes in Finland and Sweden. European Journal of Housing Policy, 7, 2, 151–72.Google Scholar
Åsberg, P. 1998. Four Essays in Housing Economics. Department of Economics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.Google Scholar
Bengtsson, B. 2006. Sverige – kommunal allmännytta och korporativa särintressen [Sweden – municipal rental housing and selective corporatists' interests]. In Bengtsson, B. (ed.), Varför så olika? Nordisk bostadspolitik i jämförande historiskt ljus [Why So Different? Nordic Housing Policy from a Comparative Historic Light]. Egalité, Malmö, Sweden, 101–57.Google Scholar
Bonvalet, C. and Ogg, J. 2007. Ageing in inner cities. The residential dilemmas of the baby boomer generation. International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 2, 2, 61–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonvalet, C. and Ogg, J. 2008. The housing situation and residential strategies of older people in France. Ageing & Society, 28, 6, 753–77.Google Scholar
Boverket, 2009. Bostadsmarknaden 2009–2010. Med slutsatser från bostadsmarknadsenkäten 2009 [The Housing Market 2009–2010. With Conclusions from the Housing Market Survey 2009]. Boverket, Karlskrona, Sweden.Google Scholar
Clapham, D. 2002. Housing pathways: a post modern analytical framework. Housing, Theory and Society, 19, 2, 57–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clapham, D. 2005. The Meaning of Housing. A Pathways Approach. Policy Press, Bristol, UK.Google Scholar
Clark, W. A. V. and Deurloo, M. C. 2006. Aging in place and housing over-consumption. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 21, 3, 257–70.Google Scholar
Clark, W. A. V. and Drever, A. I. 2000. Residential mobility in a constrained housing market: implications for ethnic populations in Germany. Environment and Planning A, 32, 5, 833–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa-Font, J., Elivar, D. and Mascarillo-Miró, O. 2009. Ageing in place? Exploring elderly people's housing preferences in Spain. Urban Studies, 46, 2, 295–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doling, J. and Ronald, R. 2010. Property-based welfare and European homeowners: how would housing perform as a pension? Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 25, 2, 227–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edmunds, J. and Turner, B. 2002. Generations, Culture and Society. Open University Press, Buckingham, UK.Google Scholar
Elsinga, M., Decker, P. D., Teller, N. and Toussaint, J. (eds) 2007. Home Ownership Beyond Asset and Security. Perceptions of Housing Related Security and Insecurity in Eight European Countries. IOS Press, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Fischer, P. A. and Malmberg, G. 2001. Settled people don't move: on life course and (im-)mobility in Sweden. International Journal of Population Geography, 7, 5, 357–71.Google Scholar
Fransson, U. (ed.) 2004. Äldrelandskapet. Äldres boende och flyttningar [An Elderly Landscape. Older People's Housing and Residential Mobility]. Research Report, Volume 2004:1, The Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Gävle, Sweden.Google Scholar
Geist, C. and McManus, P. A. 2008. Geographical mobility over the life course: motivations and implications. Population, Space and Place, 14, 4, 283–303.Google Scholar
Gidoff, A. 2008. ‘Jag trodde aldrig det kunde vara så bra att vara pensionär’ – en intervjustudie av äldres tankar kring åldrande och livsstil på ett seniorboende [‘I never thought becoming a pensioner would be this good’ – an interview study of older peoples' thoughts about ageing and lifestyle in a senior housing]. Master's thesis, Department of Social and Welfare Studies, University of Linköping, Norrköping, Sweden.Google Scholar
Gustafson, P. 2001. Retirement migration and transnational lifestyles. Ageing & Society, 4, 21, 371–94.Google Scholar
Håkansson, J. 2004. De äldres regionala flyttningar i Sverige. In Fransson, U. (ed.), Äldrelandskapet. Äldres boende och flyttningar [An Elderly Landscape. Older People's Housing and Residential Mobility]. Research Report, Volume 2004:1, The Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Gävle, Sweden, 61–77.Google Scholar
Huber, J. and Skidmore, P. 2003. The New Old: Why Baby Boomers Won't be Pensioned Off. Demos, London.Google Scholar
James, R. N. 2008. Residential satisfaction of elderly tenants in apartment housing. Social Indicators Research, 89, 3, 421–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jauhiainen, J. S. 2009. Will the retiring baby boomers return to rural periphery? Journal of Rural Studies, 25, 1, 25–34.Google Scholar
Kramer, C. and Pfaffenbach, C. 2009. Persistence preferred – on future residential (im)mobility among the generation 50plus. Erdkunde, 63, 2, 161–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lindh, T. and Malmberg, B. 2000. 40-talisternas uttåg – en ESO-rapport om 2000-talets demografiska utmaningar [Those of the 1940s Leaving the Field – An ESO-report on the Demographic Challenges of the 2000s]. Fritzes, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Lundholm, E. 2007. Are movers still the same? Characteristics of interregional migrants in Sweden 1970–2001. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 98, 3, 336–48.Google Scholar
Paulsson, J. 2008. Boende och närmiljö för äldre [Housing and Living Environment of Older People]. ARKUS Series of Reviews No. 4, ARKUS, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Pettersson, A. and Malmberg, G. 2009. Adult children and elderly parents as mobility attractions in Sweden. Population, Space and Place, 15, 4, 343–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plane, D. A. and Jurjevich, J. R. 2009. Ties that no longer bind? The patterns and repercussions of age-articulated migration. Professional Geographer, 61, 1, 4–20.Google Scholar
Robison, J. and Moen, P. 2000. A life-course perspective on housing expectations and shifts in late midlife. Research on Aging, 22, 5, 499–532.Google Scholar
SCB 2008. Tabeller över Sveriges befolkning 2007 Befolkningsförändringar – inrikes flyttningar [Tables of the Swedish Population in 2007, Population Changes – Regional Mobility]. Statistics Sweden, Stockholm.Google Scholar
SCB 2010. Sveriges framtida befolkning 2010–2060 [The Future Population of Sweden 2010–2060]. Available online at http://www.scb.se/Statistik/BE/BE0401/2010I60/BE0401_2010I60_SM_BE18SM1001.pdf [Accessed 16 July 2011].Google Scholar
SOU 1965:32. Höjd bostadsstandard [Increased Housing Standards]. Esselte, Stockholm.Google Scholar
SOU 2008:113. Bo bra hela livet – Slutbetänkande av äldreboendedelegationen [Housing for Life – Final Report of the Investigation on Older Peoples' Housing]. S2006:03, Fritzes, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Strömberg, T. 2001. Bostadspolitik – en historisk parentes [Housing policy – an historical bracket]. In Lindbom, A. (ed.), Den nya bostadspolitiken [The New Housing Policy]. Boréa, Umeå, Sweden, 21–49.Google Scholar
Sveriges kommuner och landsting [The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions] 2008. Aktuellt på äldreområdet 2008 [News on Issues of Elderly 2008]. Report, The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Tatsiramos, K. 2006. Residential mobility and housing adjustment of older households in Europe. Discussion Paper No. 2435, IZA, Bonn.Google Scholar
Tillberg-Mattsson, K. 2002. Fyrtiotalisternas boendeplaner inför pensionen [Housing plans for retirement of those born in the 1940s]. In Borgegård, L.-E., Håkansson, J. and Tillberg, K. (eds), Tillgänglighet och boende [Accessibility and Housing]. Part D of SOU 2002:29, Department of Social Affairs, Stockholm, 49–74.Google Scholar
Toussaint, J. and Elsinga, M. 2009. Exploring housing asset-based welfare. Can the UK be held up as an example for Europe? Housing Studies, 24, 5, 669–92.Google Scholar
Turner, B. and Whitehead, C. 2002. Reducing housing subsidy: Swedish housing policy in an international context. Urban Studies, 39, 2, 201–17.Google Scholar
Vogel, J. 1993. Boendeform [Housing type]. In Boende [Housing] 1975–1991. Report No. 84, Statistics Sweden, Stockholm.Google Scholar
Walters, W. H. 2000. Types and patterns of later-life migration. Geografiska Annaler, 82B, 3, 129–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walters, W. H. 2002. Later-life migration in the United States: a review of recent research. Journal of Planning Literature, 17, 1, 37–66.Google Scholar
Warnes, T. 1992. Migration and the life course. In Champion, T. and Fielding, T. (eds), Migration Processes and Patterns. Volume 1, Belhaven Press, London, 175–87.Google Scholar