Abstract
Older people’s social networks (family, friends and neighbours) affect their capacity both to avoid social isolation and to obtain practical support with everyday tasks. Isolation often follows bereavement or a decline in health, and may contribute to depression and even to cognitive decline. Through a small-scale study of the social environment in specialised housing schemes for older people in Britain, this paper examines how the different types of social capital available to elders in retirement housing affect the support and social opportunities open to them. It considers how providers of retirement housing can best help residents to sustain and maximise positive social contacts and the different roles played by both staff and by residents’ self-organisation and mutual aid. Through analysis of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, residents in retirement housing are shown to have characteristics which make them disproportionately vulnerable to loneliness and depression. Reduced public funding for staff and facilities presents challenges to housing providers and to communities in helping such residents.
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Notes
- 1.
The variables used here are the ones named pscedd, psceda and pscede. The questionnaires can be seen at http://www.ifs.org.uk/ELSA/documentation.
- 2.
Loss of a ‘husband’ may under-estimate the number who have lost a partner, due to the frequency of informal cohabitation in the British population.
- 3.
A report on this study is available from the author.
- 4.
Amongst women born in 1946, only 16 % are childless; but amongst those born in 1966, one fifth were still childless at 45 (Office for National Statistics 2013).
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Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Hanover Housing Group, and in particular to George Worlledge in their research team for facilitating the postal survey and focus groups on eight estates.
Thanks are also due to the Weeks Centre for having hosted this research.
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Note to References: To avoid repetition ‘York; Joseph Rowntree Foundation. http://www.jrf.org.uk’ is mentioned as ‘JRF’.
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Gray, A. (2015). Social Capital and Neighbourhood in Older People’s Housing. In: Nyqvist, F., Forsman, A. (eds) Social Capital as a Health Resource in Later Life: The Relevance of Context. International Perspectives on Aging, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9615-6_5
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