Cover of the Rightsizing report

2018-19
Rightsizing: Reframing older people’s housing choices
Secondary data analysis
GMCA and Centre for Ageing Better
£18,000

Hammond, M., White, S., Walsh, S., 2018. ‘Rightsizing: Reframing the housing offer for older people’, Report for Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)

The rightsizing project responded to the observation that a potentially very large number of older people were living in unsuitable accommodation for later life or had an expressed preference to move home but very few (<4%) every year did actually move house and of those less than half moved into smaller properties i.e it is incorrect to assume that older people seek to ‘downsize’.

A literature and evidence review alongside secondary data analysis of the UK Housing survey and the Understanding Society survey supported the posited hypothesis that older people in the UK were experiencing a Rightsizing gap where properties were either unavailable to them (not on the market) or inaccessible (in the wrong location or price range). The subsequent research commission ‘Finding the right place’ sought to understand how housing policy could help reduce the Rightsizing gap.

A research report based on secondary data analysis (British Household Panel Survey etc.) to explore the types of residential moves that older people make. Establishes a critique of ‘downsizing’ and a definition for ‘rightsizing’, engaging with current debates within environmental gerontology. The report has been widely cited.