Residential Independence of Older People in Spain. An Approximation Based on an Analysis of Households

Cristina López Villanueva , Universitat de Barcelona
Isabel Pujadas, Universitat de Barcelona
Miguel Rubiales, Universitat de Barcelona

In Spain, older people homes are currently undergoing a great transformation. Their number is increasing and their structure and composition is diversifying. The aim of this work is to study the ways of cohabitation of people older than 65 based on the analysis of household typologies in Spain and the observation of such variables as sex, age, marital status, level of education, forms of housing tenure, and municipality size. The final end is to contribute to the study of the factors affecting older people’s residential independence. Our source is the Household Continuous Survey microdata for year 2018. These include information about social and demographic variables of both households and the people making them up. One of the main limitations is the short time interval that it covers (from 2013 on). For this reason, it is complemented with data coming from the 2001 and 2011 censuses. First, we compare the evolution of the elderly population living in different types of household from 2001 to 2018; then, we characterize each type of household by the basic sociodemographic traits of the elder people living in them; finally, we use logit regression to analyse the propensity of older people to form different types of household. The results show a rise in residential independence in people older than 65. Extended households lose prominence while childless-couple, one-person and single-parent households expand their duration and rise in importance. Despite all changes, we are still seeing a “family reunification” in the last stages of the older ages.

See extended abstract

 Presented in Session P2. Poster Session Ageing, Health and Mortality