The determinants of the mobility patterns of the elderly in Switzerland

Abstract

Like most industrialized countries, Switzerland is characterized by an aging population. However, it differentiates itself from other countries because of its low home-ownership rate. Also, the lack of specialized housing for the elderly encourages them to stay in their current accommodation instead of moving to a smaller place thereby vacating space for family housing. Given this challenge, it is important for governments as well as other housing providers to understand better the needs of the elderly with respect to their housing situation and their patterns of mobility. Accordingly, our research aims to identify the key determinants that trigger the intention, on the part of the elderly in Switzerland, to move. For this purpose, we use secondary data obtained from the Swiss Household Panel, which is a longitudinal social sciences survey which annually interviews a random sample of private households in Switzerland using computer-assisted interviewing. We focus on respondents aged 60 and older over the period from 2013 to 2018, and our sample includes 13 313 observations. We investigate the role of intentions to move as a function of socio-demographic factors, health and life events, dwelling characteristics as well as satisfaction factors. By exploring the importance of these elements on the intention to move within a logistic regression model framework, we confirm the findings of recent studies including those that affirm that the willingness to move decreases with age, and that the elderly do not adapt the size of their home for a smaller dwelling. In addition, while we find no evidence for the impact of dwelling characteristics and health or life events, we provide empirical evidence for socio-demographic and satisfaction factors that influence the intention to move. From our results, we observe that not being satisfied with the accommodation, living in the German-speaking region of Switzerland, judging the accommodation to be too large, and being a tenant, all increase the intention to move. Our findings contribute to the welfare of the elderly in Switzerland by helping governments as well as private entities to plan housing adapted to their needs better.