Ageing In Place: Exploring The Housing Situations Of The Elderly In Traditional And Transitional Areas In Oyo Town, Nigeria

Abstract

The study explored the housing situations of the elderly in traditional and transitional areas in Oyo town towards enhancing ageing in place. A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The purposive sampling technique was used to choose one (1) traditional area and one (1) transitional area while snowballing was used to select 60 elderly and their houses in each of the chosen areas of study. A structured questionnaire and an observation checklist adopted from the standardized Housing Enabler Instrument were utilised to obtain data for the study. All 120 copies of the questionnaire forms and observation checklists administered were retrieved and analysed using frequency distribution, percentage, sum score and cross-tabulation. Results showed that a majority of the elderly in the traditional and transitional areas have not spent more than 20 years in their current house. Also, the majority of the elderly live with their families and own their houses. The elderly in the traditional area predominantly live in rooming apartments while those in the transitional area predominantly live in blocks of flats. Significantly, the houses of the elderly possess poor physical characteristics unfavourable to ageing in place, although, more of these poor characteristics were found in the traditional area. The study recommends that to promote ageing in place, housing interventions should take into account the varied situations of the elderly in different contexts and settings. Also, to successfully age in place, the elderly should be encouraged to live with family members, the elderly should be supported to own a house, and poor physical housing characteristics should be eliminated, or reduced to the barest minimum.