Utilization of Elderly Care Facilities by the Non-Institutionalized Elderly in Matsumoto

Abstract

The present study reveals the relationship between public facility utilization by elderly persons and their personal characteristics. Although homogeneity in socioeconomic and demographic attributes of the elderly population has been assumed in previous studies, this paper attempts to identify the personal attributes and facility characteristics which are determinants of the public facility utilization among subgroups of the elderly population. In order to accomplish this purpose, one type of public elderly care facility, the elderly welfare center, was selected for this study. A mail questionnaire survey was conducted in Matsumoto, Japan, to investigate the utilization of elderly welfare centers, as well as the personal character istics of older persons aged 60 and above. The respondents to the questionnaire are divided into eight subgroups on the basis of personal characteristics, and data on the subgroups are subsequentely applied to the binary logit model. Results show that the distance traveled to the two elderly welfare centers and the age of the respondents determine center utilization throughout the subgroups. Conversely, no economic characteristics of the elderly people surveyed were found to influence the center utilization.