The Gerontologist, Vol 34, Issue 6 803-814, Copyright © 1994 by The Gerontological Society of America
Housing quality of U.S. elderly households: does aging in place matter?
SM Golant and AJ LaGreca
Department of Geography, University of Florida, Gainesville 32611.
This article investigates whether older people who have lived longer in
their dwellings are more likely to occupy physically deficient
accommodations. It analyzes data from the 1987 American Housing Survey
describing the housing conditions of 12,859 aged 60-and-older households. A
multiple regression analysis assessed whether length of residential
occupancy significantly influenced housing quality after controlling for
other likely influences such as building age, chronological age, household
composition, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and location. Overall,
length of residence was a relatively poor predictor of housing quality, and
only certain subgroups of longtime owners and renters were more likely to
occupy physically deficient dwellings.
