Changing residential mobility rates of older people in Sweden

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe lifestyle of the baby boomers as retirees has been assumed to differ from older cohorts due to them being financially more stable and having grown up during the welfare state expansion. Many baby boomers live in large houses with gardens that require maintenance and labour. Recent studies have indicated that a growing share of those born in the 1940s in Sweden express a wish to change residence at retirement or in old age. A need to verify such results statistically was identified to confirm whether there has been an increase in residential mobility among older people. As a result, moves that took place during 2001–06 of the total cohort born in the 1940s were compared to similar moves by those born in the 1930s, ten years earlier during 1991–96,i.e.those aged 57–66 in 1996 and 2006. The study used a register database, Geoswede, containing the entire Swedish population. The study showed increased residential mobility rates among the 1940s cohort compared to the cohort born in the 1930s. However, explanations for the differences between the cohorts were not evident.