An Explorative Study of the Political, Economic, and Social Factors Influencing the Development of Senior Housing: A Case Study of Hong Kong

Abstract

Senior housing with age-friendly design and elderly care services contributes to the health and well-being of older people. Previous research has evidenced that the immediate environment factors of senior housing, such as the design of housing features and facilities, have a direct bearing on the satisfaction and quality of life of older people. However, external environment factors, such as political, economic, and social ones that affect key stakeholders’ behaviors in senior housing development, are relatively under-researched. Accordingly, this study aimed to explore the external environmental factors influencing the development of senior housing. Taking Hong Kong as case study, this study first commenced with a systematic review to identify the factors in political, economic, and social domains from global evidence. Following this, we interviewed local experts from academia, industry, and government to solicit their opinions on the relative importance of these factors. We then determined the factor rankings using the analytical hierarchy process method. The results showed that local experts perceived economic factors as the most critical ones in influencing senior housing development in Hong Kong, including land costs, funding from financial institutions, and government incentives. If policymakers tend to promote senior housing in densely populated cities like Hong Kong, the policies should be attractive for housing developers, such as land premium concessions and innovative financial channels for supporting the long-term development of senior housing.

Architectural and Configurational Study of Senior Housing with Steel Volumetric Modular Technology: Towards Age-Ready and Process-Efficient Sustainable Living

“…Recent years have seen an increase in functional and organizational solutions, such as integrated living concepts like co-housing and co-living, that extend seniors' time to lead independent lives and ease the burden of institutional solutions aimed at the elderly [7]. Assisted living concepts consist of a real estate component and a services component, addressing seniors' physical and psychological needs [8].…”