What women want: single older women and their housing preferences

Insecure tenure in Amsterdam: who rents with a temporary lease, and why? A baseline from 2015

“…Consequently, renting is not very different from home-ownership in the sense of security of tenure. This stands in stark contrast with the situation in, for example, the UK (Fitzpatrick & Pawson, 2014), the USA (Desmond & Gershenson, 2016) and Australia (Darab et al, 2018;Hulse & Milligan, 2014), where renting contracts can easily be dissolved by the landlord.…”

“…For instance, in their research among tenants in the social rented sector in England, Fitzpatrick and Watts found, with regard to the insecurity of their leases that: 'Older people, people with health or disability issues, and families with children, tended to be the most concerned, though more pronounced anxiety was not confined to those groups' (2017, p. 1032). Similarly, Darab et al (2018) who focused on women above 45 in a more rural part of Australia, found that for this population category, security of tenure was the unanimously shared and foremost housing preference.…”

“…Such an erosion of stability contributes negatively to subjective wellbeing and mental health. These effects sometimes cause people to live in an atmosphere of anxiety and fear (Darab et al, 2018;Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017;Morris et al, 2017), and they can lead to reduced autonomy and privacy in the dwelling. 6 In their study of Australian long-term private rental sector tenants in large cities, Morris et al identified three typical responses to housing insecurity; 'incessant anxiety and fear; lack of concern; and concern offset by economic/social capital and traded off against locational preference' (2017, p. 653).…”

Female perspectives on housing quality and household characteristics, perceptions and challenges: Evidence from Australia

“…Women under 65 also reported poorer mental health which was strongly associated with financial strain. Indeed, middle-aged Australian women who do not own their own homes are vulnerable to greater financial strain in older age ( Darab et al, 2018 ), are more likely to experience household financial stress and psychological distress due factors such as divorce ( André et al, 2019 ; McCarthy & Simpson, 1991 ), unemployment ( Taylor et al, 2017 ) and poor health ( Gibson et al, 2011 ). The women under 65 are also likely to have been exposed to the debt funded crises of the recent decade leaving them more vulnerable than their older peers ( Wood et al, 2017 ).…”

“…The provision of affordable housing would not only alleviate financial strain but also likely to benefit mental health ( Rowley et al, 2016 ; Baker et al, 2020 ). Indeed, Darab et al (2018) , Devlin et al (2015) and Varley (1993) propose that flexible housing arrangements may provide additional housing solutions such as co-housing and co-ownership schemes between governments or community housing providers and low-income earners. In this respect we are confident that the research presented in this paper contributes to the evidence base for advancing such proposals.…”