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Ageing populations and housing needs: comparing strategic policy discourses in France and England
- Authors:
- HILLCOAT-NALLETAMBY Sarah, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Administration, 44(7), December 2010, pp.808-826.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
There is a broad European policy agenda which promotes ‘ageing in place’, where older people are helped to live independently in their own homes in familiar local environments. Placing independent living and ‘aging in place’ on the policy agenda means that housing will need to become a more central element of welfare agendas. This article compares recent English and French policy discourses on population ageing and its implications for the housing needs of increasingly large numbers of older citizens. Through analysis of 6 recent strategic policy statements representing each government's official responses to population ageing and its social policy implications for the 21st century, the article demonstrates how differences in the social representation of the ageing process and of older people themselves permeate policy discourse, influencing the perceptions of the housing needs of older citizens and the role that housing itself may play in promoting independent living. In England, demographic ageing, housing and its role in facilitating independent living and active ageing are explicitly articulated, whilst in France, the housing environment has until recently, been portrayed as one which must accommodate the illness, incapacity and dependency of later life. This article offers explanations for these differences in terms of cultural variations in the social representations of later life, divergences in political philosophies and welfare principles.