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Accommodation Downsizing

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging

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Synonyms

Downpricing; Housing asset decumulation; Housing equity release; Rightsizing

Definition

A reduction in housing consumption (Banks et al. 2010) that “encompasses a decrease in dwelling size (i.e., number of rooms, bedrooms or spatial dimensions), and/or garden/yard area, and or monetary value” (Judd et al. 2014, p. 24). For practical purposes a reduction in number of rooms or bedrooms is often used as a proxy.

Overview

Aging in place policies are a common response of governments to population aging (See “Aging in Place”). Typically, this involves increasing aged care services delivered to the home and home modifications to improve accessibility, thereby reducing (or postponing) transitions to more costly institutional aged care (See “Home Modifications”). This aligns with the desire of many older people to remain in their family homes for as long as possible (Venti and Wise 1990; Olsberg and Winters 2005; Croucher 2008; Judd et al. 2010; Porteus 2011; Fernald 2014; James 2016a)...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    B. H. Judd

Authors
  1. B. H. Judd
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to B. H. Judd .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Population Division, UN Dept of Economic Social Affairs Population Division, New York, NY, USA

    Danan Gu

  2. Department of Population Health Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA

    Matthew E. Dupre

Section Editor information

  1. The University of Adelaide, Centre for Housing, Urban and Regional Planning, School of Social Sciences, Adelaide, Australia

    Debbie Faulkner

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Judd, B.H. (2019). Accommodation Downsizing. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_958-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_958-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

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