The general goal of the Project on Housing and Living Arrangements of the elderly is to determine the effect of housing arrangements on the economic status and well-being of the elderly, and the effect of the elderly's economic and health status on housing behavior. In particular, this part of the project is devoted to the understanding of the potential of housing wealth to serve the financial needs of the elderly, and the causes and mechanisms that precipitate mobility and changes in living arrangements.
The specific aims of this project are as follows: 1. To describe the change in housing wealth with age, particularly beyond age 70, and to estimate the determinants of mobility and of change in housing wealth. 2. To estimate the transaction costs of moving for the older old. 3. To link the probability of moving to health-dependent life expectancy. 4. To describe the health conditions and life events (such as the onset of a disability or the death of a spouse) that might precipitate a change of living arrangement. 5. To estimate the relative costs of alternative living arrangements, including independent housing, supplemented by various home care services, and long-term institutionalization in a nursing home, taking account of applicable government subsidies, and health insurance coverage in these costs. To estimate how these costs affect the choice among living arrangements, with particular attention to the effects on nursing home demand of changes in medical care finance; e.g., coverage of Medicare and other health insurance programs, and the treatment of home care services. 6. To distinguish the direct health effect from the indirect medical costs effect in the case when a housing change is associated with a health condition; that is, to determine whether the health condition precipitated the change of living arrangement for physical reasons, or whether medical costs plus the potential costs of home care services in the present living arrangement induced by the health condition caused the change in living arrangements for economic reasons. 7. To lay the foundation for construction of policy simulation models, based on a microsimulation system, that can forecast effects of changes in government subsidy and health insurance programs, and to carry out this construction for prototype issues.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 403 publications
