An extremely large cohort of the American population is moving into post-retirement stages of the life cycle. This growth in the number of elderly people has received considerable attention as scholars have addressed their current and future social and economic needs, but relatively little scientific study has been focused on the form and location of housing that will accommodate them. Of special significance is the fact that a large segment of this group has occupied the same dwelling units for very long periods, raising families and going through "empty-nester" periods while household heads were still employed. The impacts of the transition of this group into the different lifestyles and economic conditions of retirement are not well understood, however. Are elderly persons who continue to occupy their long-term residences more likely to renew their temporal and financial investments in housing, thereby improving the quality of dwellings and neighborhoods, or will they become more lax in their maintenance and improvement efforts, thereby contributing to relative decline in the quality of housing? This project will address this question by examining data from the Annual Housing Survey, statistically seeking to determine (1) if a linear relationship exists between the length of time that a household has occupied a dwelling and housing quality, (2) the direct and indirect influences of length of residence on housing quality when controlling for differences in the characteristics of households and dwellings, (3) the magnitudes and locations of elderly residents occupying poor-quality housing, and (4) how patterns of housing for the elderly vary among different metropolitan areas. In addition to identifying these relationships, this project will adapt the LISREL VII model to analyze direct and indirect causal linkages between demographic and housing factors. This project will provide valuable insights into the causes and consequences of long-term occupation of residences by the elderly, thereby enhancing basic scientific understandings of this important topic. The conclusions of this research also will be very useful to analysts and decision makers in the private and public sectors as they seek to determine what problems may intensify in future years as the nation's elderly population continues to expand.
