The Social and Built Environment in an Older Society (1988) / Chapter Skim
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THE RELATION OF HOUSING AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS TO THE PRODUCTIVITY OF OLDER PEOPLE
THE RELATION OF HOUSING AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS TO THE PRODUCTIVITY OF OLDER PEOPLE
Pages 250-280
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From page 250... ...
A second, much thinner stream deals with unpaid work volunteer work or helping others in which the evidence is that although people expect to do more of it when they retire, they do not report, after they retire, that they are doing more of it (Barfield and Morgan, 19691. James N
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From page 251... ...
. If one asks about environments that might encourage productive activity on the part of older people, much of the literature does not appear relevant because it focuses productivity discus
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From page 252... ...
The potential for productive activities outside the usual paid employment by older people is both relatively and absolutely important. The productivity of older people is a large and growing issue because the sheer number of relatively healthy older people is growing, and there is no evidence that they really want to stay longer in the paid labor force or that the younger workers want them there.
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From page 253... ...
Indeed, there is some urgency in developing better designs for living arrangements for older people because many of them right now are committing themselves to investments in communities that, at least from the point of view of encouraging productive activities, are very badly designed. What little research has been done has tended to follow the usual scientific paradigms of varying one thing at a time or at the least varying a few things in some kind of experimental design that is orthogonal so that the manipulated variables are uncorrelated.
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From page 254... ...
Consequently, let me postpone a discussion of the physical environment for just a little longer and briefly describe the economic and social structures or arrangements that ~ believe would have to accompany the better built environment if it were to work. ~ shall also indicate what those optimal arrangements imply about the required physical environment.
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From page 255... ...
Finally, by giving everyone an initial stock of the alternative currency, a certain initial equality is introduced even among people with wide differences in wealth and money income. There is then an easy set of subsequent improvements: first, to have a small community tax in such currency so people can be paid for doing things for the community; then an insurance arrangement by which for an annual payment one can have emergency needs covered without running out of the currency; and finally, an annuity arrangement by which larger, early annual payments build a reserve to pay for the greater needs when one is very old.
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From page 256... ...
Services performed for others or for the community might initially be considered worth one "&" (if that is what we decide to call the new shadow currencyJ per quarter hour of unskilled time, plus a fourth of an "&" per mile driven transporting someone or running errands. Another aspect of such economic arrangements would be a flexible choice as to how much money each individual invests in the community.
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From page 257... ...
Finally, if the shadow currency were to be used to tax members and pay for community services, and also to set up insurance and annuity arrangements allowing scheduled payments to cover unavoidable needs and heavier needs at older ages, then expert actuarial help would be needed, as well as clearance with the insurance regulations of the state. Note that an annuity-type arrangement would require a lump sum payment from new members who were joining at older ages because they would not have made the usual surplus payments in their earlier years that allow a flat set of payments to cover the higher risks later.
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From page 258... ...
The gerontological literature is full of studies of the strain of caregiving and the resulting demand for nursing home care merely to relieve the strain and not because highly skilled nursing is needed (Morycz, 1985; Silverstone, 19851. Providing social support also requires skills most of us must acquire.
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From page 259... ...
As with the social-organizational environment, these economic arrangements might be possible among a set of dispersed families, but they would surely be more likely to succeed if people were in easy contact, had regular, casual interactions with others, shared some space and equipment, and could easily keep up with everything that was going on. Thus, the built environment may be a crucial element in facilitating the productive activity of older people.
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From page 260... ...
Yet the familiar is difficult to give up, even if the economic arrangements in a new environment could mimic those to be had with singlefamiTy homes. In a design workshop with students given an assignment to design such a physical environment, it took a quantum change in their orientation (away from a focus on auto traffic and parking and the aesthetic aspects of design)
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From page 261... ...
that can be closed off when privacy is wanted. Some hospitals have begun putting windows in rooms that look into halls or common spaces the windows have curtains that can be drawn.
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2. Privacy and individual freedom, combined somehow with easy access to others to give and receive social support and various kinds of help.
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From page 263... ...
Of all the discussion and writing on better physical environments for the aged, almost none focuses on the activities of the aged, except perhaps in terms of their improved capacity to care for themselves requiring alarm systems, hand-rails, stoves that shut off, chairs it is easier to get out of, and the like. The ideal way to arrange helping is during regular or even casual meetings at meals, the laundry, or in shared spaces rather than formally, through an exchange center (however much computers may facilitate such "markets"~.
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From page 264... ...
Two-generation families would also be welcome, however. A major reason for insisting that all features must be attractive is that otherwise people will not move to the community until they become desperate, and it could become one more dismal nursing home, assembling all those who need help.
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From page 265... ...
Overall, it would be difficult to provide hierarchies of shared space for example, some shared locally by 4 to 12 families, some by larger groups or the whole community, and some by smaller groups from the whole community. It would be difficult to provide both privacy and access to the outside and one's car and also easy access (without going out in the wind and rain and cold)
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From page 266... ...
I suspect that what we would learn would be that existing communities have various barriers that prevent any but the most limited patterns of mutual help or other productive activities. Perhaps cataloging all of the possible barriers in their diversity would help prove our contention that we need built environments that solve all the problems at once, rather than more experiments that would continue to show that partial solutions are not much use.
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From page 267... ...
1978. "Neighbourhood Care and Social Policy: A Research Perspective." Berkhamsted, Herts, England: The Volunteer Centre.
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From page 268... ...
1983. "Social Support and Informal Helping Relationship." Pp.
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From page 269... ...
1985. "Working with the Informal Helping Networks of the Elderly: The Experiences of Three Programs." Journal of Social Issues 41:47-64.
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From page 270... ...
Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference of the Environmental Design Research Association. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Design Research Association.
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From page 271... ...
1984. "Helper Bank: A Reciprocal Services Program for Older Adults." Social Work July-August:397-398.
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1976. "Homogeneity and Heterogeneity in Housing for the Elderly." In Community Planning for an Aging Society, M
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1981. "An Ecological View of Living Arrangements." The Gerontologist 21:59-66.
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From page 274... ...
1975. "Housing Characteristics and the Wellbeing of Elderly Tenants in Federally Assisted Housing." Journal of Gerontology 30:601-607.
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From page 275... ...
1985. "Income of Retired Workers by Age at First Benefit Receipt: Findings from the New Beneficiary Survey." Social Security Bulletin 48(July)
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From page 276... ...
"Post-Occupancy Evaluation of a Retirement Home." Pp. 301-311 in Design Research Interactions: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference of the Environmental Design Research Association, A
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1983. "Intergenerational Care Providers of Non-Inst~tutionalized Frail Elderly: Characteristics and Consequences." Journal of Gerontological Social Work 5:21-34.
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From page 278... ...
1985. "Informal Social Support Systems for the Frail Elderly." In America's Aging: Health in an Older Society, Committee on an Aging Society, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council.
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From page 279... ...
344-348 in Environmental Design: Research, Theory and Application: Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Conference of the Environmental Design Research Association, A
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1958. "Voluntary Association Memberships of American Adults: Evidence from National Sample Survey." American Sociological Review 23:284-294.
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