Passing through the ages : later-life housing decision-making
To live is to age. However, to age is often to be confronted with the negative constructions of later-life and the places, people, and pathways associated with it. This stigmatisation of ageing may then form a barrier to housing decision-making, as to engage with questions of later-life housing is also to engage with later-life identities. This research offers a novel perspective on later-life housing decision-making by introducing a multidimensional framework that synthesizes affective forecasting, social constructionism and the impact of stigma on current and future selves; thus uncovering the hidden complexities, contradictions, and psychological negotiations that inform pathways. Following a systematic literature review with meta-ethnographic synthesis, 54 semi-structured, active interviews were carried out - 38 with people over 65 living in their own homes and with 15 practitioners involved in later-life housing. A reflexive thematic analysis approach was used to code, analyse and make meaning from the data. In framing housing decision work as ‘future work’ - an interaction between imagined selves, feelings and futures - the study reveals how people navigate uncertainty, risk, and threat in housing choices. It shows that later-life housing decisions are deeply relational yet often fraught with instability and shadowed by the fears of the fourth age. In order to manage the threats to third age identities, people may deploy a range of tactics to increase tolerability and reduce risk: othering, avoidance, the use of proxy experience and creating temporal triggers. The process may also involve the ‘passing’ of decisions, places and interactions as mainstream rather than specifically later-life. While social interactions shape choices, discussions about housing and care frequently remain implied, partial, or even avoided, suggesting a gap between the potential benefit of advice and information and the reluctance to engage with it. The research suggests that strategic interventions, such as developing tools to address errors in affective forecasting, sensitising people to the psychological processes at play, facilitating access to proxy experiences, the use of housing-related peer support and increasing familiarity with later-life housing spaces, may improve decision-making outcomes.
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