Various studies indicate that the elderly are unwilling to move, while health issues are one of the important factors influencing decisions to move. In our study, we tested the willingness of the elderly to accept various housing options based on a large quantitative survey of persons aged 50 and above conducted in 2015 in Slovenia. Our focus was on the respondents' attitudes to different housing options, especially less-wellknown options such as senior cohousing, household groups, family caregiving for elderly people and multigenerational residential buildings. This is relevant for the future development of housing and care policies because in a majority of countries housing markets will need to adapt to the growing elderly populations and their diversified needs. We employ cluster analysis to analyze which housing options are acceptable, how people can be grouped regarding the acceptability of moving house, and the characteristics of these groups.
The universal basic income (UBI) has found its way into public debates and has prominent advocates across almost all political camps. In many debates, it is presented as a solution for the consequences of a large variety of current societal challenges, such as unemployment, over-education, ecological crises, gender inequality and issues related to digitalization and automatization. While UBI has been discussed broadly from an expert position, we know very little about the population’s perceptions of UBI. Thus, to shed light on the public legitimacy of UBI as a radically different concept of social justice and citizenship, our contribution uses data from large group discussions where participants explicitly refer to the UBI as an option for a future welfare state. By comparing debates in Slovenia and Germany, we unearth that the perspective adopted by the participants towards a UBI is strongly shaped by the welfare institutions of the countries in which they live and the social justice principles embodied in those institutions.
The process generally referred to as 'the transition' implied a complex set of social changes in Central and Eastern European countries (CEE). On the one hand, there were institutional reforms which were launched to abolish the socialist economic and political systems. On the other hand, the provision of welfare was also affected by 'transition'. The change could be observed at the institutional level (i.e., through the welfare state) as well as at the social and individual level Á in the ways individuals associated, how they perceived new risks and with whom they engaged to confront them. In this article we focus on social support provision from informal sources, i.e., ego-centered social support networks, which are an important foundation for the quality of everyday life. We would like to find out whether changes in the socio-economic system are reflected in and accompanied by changes in social support providers. How have people responded to transition? Did the patterns of support and social support providers change in this period? Consequently, the research question addressed in this article is the following: do the current types of social networks differ from those in the 1980s? We try to answer it by analyzing and comparing the data on social support networks in 1987 and 2002. The data are interpreted in the context of the transition that was happening in Slovenia at the time.
Sense of community is analyzed in two very different types of neighborhoods in Ljubljana, Slovenia: a large housing estate and a middle‐class neighborhood of individual houses. The main research question posed is which individual characteristics are associated with sense of community in the two neighborhoods. A specific addition to current knowledge involves the inclusion of values as important characteristics associated with sense of community. The analysis was made on a quota sample of 337 individuals. Sense of community was shown to be comprised of three factors: (1) contact with neighbors; (2) social control; and (3) attachment. We observed this separately in the two neighborhoods. The analysis showed that values significantly increase the model's explanatory power and that the two neighborhoods differ significantly in terms of which variables are important for sense of community, therefore indicating that this could be highly context‐dependent. In addition, qualitative data are used to illustrate the sense of community in the two neighborhoods.
In countries with prevalent family care and less developed care services, it is important to understand the ways families cope with the care needs of their frail family members as part of policy learning to make care systems more sustainable. Filial care is a vital element of family care, yet is significantly restrained by the involvement of carers in the labour market; unequal gender distribution of the care burden; and insufficient recognition of, and policy support, for family care. This article considered the issue of the sustainability of elderly care in a familialist country, Slovenia, by identifying the coping strategies families adopt for the provision of care. To this end, in-depth qualitative data based on a purposeful sample of 55 community-resident users of social home care services and their 55 family carers were used. We identified five external coping strategies: use of formal care services, use of extended family network, use of wider community network, cohabitation, and home adjustments. Among internal strategies, we detected work-related adjustments; abandoning leisure activities; abandoning vacations; establishing new routines; accepting and finding satisfaction in care; increased psychological distress, such as worries and overburdening; and some unmet care recipient needs. Very few strategies may be described as supported by policy actions, despite such support being essential for increasing the sustainability of the family-based care model.
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