Adjustments of the Elderly to Declining Health: Residential Moves and Social Support

Abstract

As the Canadian population ages, adjustments to deteriorating health play an important part in structuring demands for health care and social services. Litwak and Longino have argued that residential moves in response to a need fir greater social support from family constitute an important element in elderly mobility and migration. We use data from the Health and Activity Limitation Survey (HALS) and the Survey on Aging and Independence (SAl) to show that support moves constitute about one-third of all moves among the older elderly, but that support moves also have consequences in terms of reducing access to friends and generating lower usage of formal services. There is also some evidence that regions with slower economic growth have higher proportions of in-movers who are support movers, which is consistent with a general view that the dynamics of aging result in greater service demands in more disadvantaged areas. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]