Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21

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Habitat International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/habitatint

Housing affordability, preferences and expectations of elderly with

government intervention
Eddie C.M. Hui a, *, Francis K.W. Wong a, K.W. Chung b, K.Y. Lau c
a
Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
b
Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
c
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

a b s t r a c t
Keywords: As Hong Kong is approaching an ageing society, it is important for the government to study elderly
Elderly peoples housing needs in order to design a housing system suitable for them. In light of this, we
Housing preferences
investigate the housing preferences of the elderly in Hong Kong. Unlike most of previous studies which
Expectation
Prospect theory
look for factors directly affecting elderly peoples housing preferences, we take an indirect approach by
Public housing analyzing the factors affecting elderly peoples housing expectation, which in turns affect their housing
preferences. The research uses prospect theory to analyze how these factors inuence their expectation
on housing. In particular, we introduce the cutoff effect into our prospect theory framework. This is the
rst study to apply prospect theory to investigate elderly housing. We also use a linear regression model
to analyze factors affecting elderly peoples satisfaction level on their current housing. The results show
signicantly higher satisfaction level on current housing on respondents with more income and those
living in public housing. The elderly peoples high level of satisfaction on their current housing in fact
reects their preference for ageing in place. Therefore, the governments housing policy should help the
elderly people to age in place more conveniently so that they can live with dignity in a familiar
environment.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction
Hong Kong has become an ageing society. According to the most
recent released gure of the 2011 Population Census, 941,205 (or
13.3%) of its 7.07 million population were 65 or above (the deni-
tion of elderly people in Hong Kong). The number of elderly people
has increased by 853,287 from 1961 to 2011. This ageing trend is
expected to continue in the future. In 2012, the Census and
Statistics Department (2012) projected that in 2041, 30% of the
total population will age 65 or above. The Census and Statistics
Department (2012) also projected that the life expectancies of
male and female in Hong Kong, which were 80.5 and 86.7 years
respectively in 2011, to increase to 84.4 and 90.8 years respectively
in 2014. The ageing trend is undeniably the direct result of
extended longevity and dwindling fertility. As Hong Kong ap-
proaches an ageing society, its housing system needs to be rede-
signed in order to suit the needs of the elderly people. The current
* Corresponding author. TU 528, Dept. of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China. Tel.: 852 27665881; fax: 852
27645131.
E-mail addresses: bscmhui@polyu.edu.hk (E.C.M. Hui), bskwwong@inet.polyu.
edu.hk (F.K.W. Wong), sskwchun@inet.polyu.edu.hk (K.W. Chung), NikkiLau@leo.
com.hk (K.Y. Lau).
housing system may not be suitable for them in the future.
Therefore, it is important to study their housing needs.
So far, the Hong Kong government is obligated to put the notion
of ageing in place as a leading principle of elderly service. It
means appropriate support should be provided for older people
and their families to allow them to grow old with minimal
disruption. Government residential care services or nursing homes
are the last resorts to elderly. Therefore, to uphold the principle of
promoting the well-being of elderly in Hong Kong, it is a must to
have a deep understanding on and to identify what constitutes the
housing needs (preferences) of elderly. This study reviews a variety
of housing options to the elderly in both Hong Kong and the
overseas and presents ndings on elderly peoples housing pref-
erences. Unlike most previous studies which examine factors
directly affecting housing preferences, we adopt an indirect
approach by investigating factors affecting elderly peoples expec-
tation on their housing, which in turns affect their housing pref-
erences. In particular, we include living time in current housing,
which was often overlooked in previous studies (e.g. Phillips, Siu,
Yeh, & Cheng, 2004), as a factor in our regression model. We use
prospect theory to analyze how these factors inuence their
expectation on housing. This is the rst study to apply prospect
theory to investigate elderly housing. The issues identied in this

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.01.010
0197-3975/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
12 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21
paper are not unique to HK and the ndings can provide transfer-
able lessons to most of the developed world.
This paper proceeds as follows: Literature review and
background section reviews past literature about elderly housing
and compares housing option for elderly in other countries.
Framework of study and research methodology section describes
our research methodology. The results of the study are presented in
Findings section. In Discussion section, we analyze our results and
give a further implication. Finally, a conclusion is drawn up in
Conclusion section.
Literature review and background
Literature review
Studies on ageing population and housing provision for them
have never been sparse. They focused on different topics, such as
housing choice of the elderly (Chi, 1998); housing satisfaction of old
people (Moen & Erickson, 2001); changing housing demand (Chiu &
Ho, 2006; Yip, Lee, & Law, 2003); housing needs of elderly (Cheng,
2003; Lewis, 1997; Wong, 1998); inuence of cultural factors and
inter-generational relationship (Chow & Chi,1990; Kinsella,1990; Ng,
Phillips, & Lee, 2002). Most of them focused on ageing population and
housing provision for the elderly, and identied that affordability,
social care and housing preferences are signicant factors affecting
the planning of housing for the elderly. In particular, Cheng (2003)
investigated the housing needs of the middle-class elderly in Hong
Kong and discovered that most of the soon-to-be old respondents
desired to have library and garden in their accommodation. In his
study, the respondents also preferred to live in places with high
accessibility and supportive communities. The result indicated that
even elderly people in Hong Kong tend to have more diversied
housing and living preferences, the desire to have autonomy and
more choices in accommodation is also becoming more obvious.
However, some studies found contrary results. For example, in Woo
(2013)s book which examines diverse facets of the ageing popula-
tion in Hong Kong, it is mentioned that a survey to gather residents
opinion regarding the age-friendliness characteristics was carried
out in Shatin district in Hong Kong in 2011. Over 500 people living in
Shatin were interviewed, of which nearly after of them were 65 or
above. A total of 85 aspects under 8 domains were questioned. One of
the domains was Housing. Each aspect was rated by the re-
spondents using a 6-point scale (1e6), with higher scores indicating
greater age-friendliness. The score of a particular domain was esti-
mated by the average of the scores of the aspects under the corre-
sponding domain. The results showed that the Housing domain
scored fairly high at 4.02, with the age groups of 65e79 and 80
scoring higher at 4.15 and 4.11 respectively. Meanwhile, people of age
groups 35e49 and 50e64 rated the Housing domain lower at 3.88
and 3.95 respectively. A more recent comprehensive study of elderly
housing in Hong Kong was conducted by Chui (2008). He provided an
account and analysis of the challenges and opportunities in accom-
plishing the principle of ageing in place in Hong Kong. He analyzed
that the private and public sectors have taken divergent paths in the
effort of enhancing ageing in place: market forces in private sector
redevelopment usually brought about gentrication, which resulted
in the dislocation of older people. On the other hand, in the public
sector, massive public housing programmes and the governments
community care policy helped to achieve ageing in place. He
emphasized that as a Chinese city, Hong Kong should capitalize on its
traditional cultural heritage of venerating older persons in its social
policy direction in general, and in its urban development in partic-
ular. The threat of urban renewal to elderly people was also discussed
in his earlier study, Chui (2001), which also suggested that govern-
ment housing policies should incorporate the principles of ageing in
place and community care, in order to address the housing needs and
problems of the elderly people affected. Phillips et al. (2004) inves-
tigated factors affecting elderly peoples residential satisfaction using
regression models. The results revealed that the structural domain
had the strongest tie with residential satisfaction. Formal and
informal types of support for elderly peoples needs were generally
unrelated to residential satisfaction. As a further extension of this
study, Phillips, Siu, Yeh, and Cheng (2005) examined the role of
residential satisfaction in mediating the effects of dwelling condi-
tions on psychological well-being of elderly people in Hong Kong.
They found that dwelling conditions had indirect impact, but no
direct impact, on elderly peoples psychological well-being. Phillips,
Siu, Yeh, and Cheng (2008) examined the effects of objective mea-
sures of informal support and subjective measures on psychological
well-being of older occupants in different household circumstances.
The results showed that both objective and subjective measures of
informal support were related to older persons psychological well-
being, but subjective measures of informal support were found to
be more important predictors of psychological well-being.
A typical study on affordability housing for the elderly was done by
Golant (2003), who examined ve major political and organizational
barriers that have restricted the availability of supportive services in
affordable rental developments for the low-income elderly group in
the U.S. He also offered 12 policy recommendations. His research can
act as a useful reference for our study. In particular, some of his policy
recommendations may be applicable to Hong Kong.
Besides the above study, in another paper, Golant (2008)
investigated low-income elderly homeowners living in very old
dwellings in the U.S. He found that those poor older homeowners in
very old dwellings were more likely to be demographically disad-
vantaged and to occupy physically decient dwellings. He called for
public debate on the comparative benets and costs of govern-
mental policies that help those elderly people to age in place as
opposed to offering them alternative affordable housing options.
This study can also act as a reference in Hong Kong as many old
people in Hong Kong earn only a low income and live in older
districts. Should we help them age in place or offer them alternative
affordable choices of housing?
The above summarizes previous literature on elderly housing.
Many studies focused on ageing population and housing provision
for the elderly. Most of them identied factors directly affecting
elderly peoples housing preferences. However, many of them
overlooked that elderly peoples expectation on their housing is a
main factor affecting their housing preferences. Therefore, our
study aims to ll in this gap by taking an indirect approach: we
analyze what are the factors affecting elderly peoples housing
expectation, which in turns affect their housing preferences. We
apply prospect theory, which was never applied on elderly housing
in previous studies, to explain this.
Background of housing situation of elderly in Hong Kong
Current housing situation
According to the latest released statistics from the Census and
Statistics Department (C&SD) in Hong Kong, about 31% of Hong
Kong citizens lived in public rental housing. The proportion of aged
public rental housing residents (65 or above) is even higher at 38%.
In 2009, among 1,129,900 older persons in Hong Kong, 39.3%
were living with both spouse and children while 44.5% were living
with either spouse or children. About one-tenth (12.7%) were living
alone and 3.6% were living with persons other than spouse and
children. As to the housing types, 46.3% of the older persons resided
in private permanent housing and 37.7% resided in public rental
housing. To their accommodation situation, 55.7% of those elderly
were owner-occupiers and 43.4% were tenants. Only a small
 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21
proportion of them were living in accommodation which was rent-
free (0.9%) (Thematic household survey report no. 40, Aug 2009).
Statistics from the C&SD also showed that most elderly people
lived in old urban communities like Kowloon City and Sham Shui
Po. They are private residents of lower classes, living in poorer
conditions. Some even live in very small sub-divided units with
extremely poor living environment and potential safety hazards.
The re in Fa Yuen Street on November 30, 2011, killing 9 people in
total, raised the safety issues of sub-divided ats. Moreover, the
rents of those sub-divided units are often expensive (Oxfam, 2013).
In October 2012, the average rent per square foot for these tiny
accommodations was about $22, which was comparable to that of
some large private housing estates. TVB Jades Programme News
Magazine on March 2, 2013 made a detailed description of prob-
lems of sub-divided ats in Hong Kong.
In fact, most of the residents living in sub-divided ats are on
the waiting list for public rental housing (PRH). The increasing
number of such households pushes up the number of applicants on
the waiting list. In late September 2012, the total number of ap-
plicants on the waiting list for PRH reached a record high of 210,400
(up from 90,240 in 2003), of whom 110,400 are either elderly or
ordinary families and 100,000 are non-elderly singletons (Oxfam,
2013). Oxfam (2013) conducted research on living conditions of
tenant households on the waiting list for PRH for over 3 years. A
total of 501 non-CSSA families (i.e. the so-called N have-nots)
were interviewed. Of those respondents, 68.3% are living in either
cubicles (11.2%), bed spaces (0.8%) or sub-divided ats (56.3%) with
poor living conditions. The result showed that 73.7% of the re-
spondents had not yet received the rst offer of PRH despite having
waited 4.4 years on average. Only the remaining 26.3% of the re-
spondents had received a rst offer with an average waiting time of
4.5 years e well above the target time of 3 years. Furthermore, the
median rent-to-income ratio was 30.1% for low-income private
households, which was higher than that of overall private housing
tenants in Hong Kong at 24.3%. If food and housing costs are also
included, both categories shared 69% of the total income of poor
private tenant households. This reects how serious the living
problem of low-income private residents in Hong Kong is.
Elderly housing options in Hong Kong
Purposed-built housings specically for elderly in Hong Kong
are mainly provided by the public sector e Hong Kong Housing
Authority (HKHA) and a non-government organization (NGO) e
Hong Kong Housing Society (HKHS). The private sector and some
NGOs principally involve in the business of residential institutions
designed for frail elderly. HKHA provides public housing with a
basic elderly-friendly design. Only older persons receiving low in-
come are eligible for applying this kind of housing due to maximum
income and total net assets value limits set by HKHA. Afterwards,
HKHA ceased to produce this kind of housing for elderly in the year
of 2000. In addition, HKHA has still provided other kinds of single-
person independent ats for the elderly tenants. Residential
Table 1
Public housing programmes for elderly.
Hong Kong Housing Authoritys Details
Programme
Single Elderly Persons Priority Scheme Housing for senior citizen or one person
ats are allocated to single elderly
applicants
Elderly Persons Priority Scheme For two or more related orunrelated
elderly people who are willing to live
together in a public rental at
13
institutions are exclusively for frail elderly under the licensing
system administrated by Social Welfare Department.
Since the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, an Elderly Commis-
sion mainly responsible for the overall elderly policy was estab-
lished. So far, Single Elderly Persons Priority Scheme and Elderly
Persons Priority Scheme are two major programmes for the elderly
housing (see Table 1 for details). In fact, the efciency of both
programmes should be enhanced since the supplied seats can no
longer afford the growing trend of ageing population in Hong Kong.
Worse still, the shortage of elderly housing causes the longer
waiting period of every applicant (the elderly) and therefore, de-
teriorates the quality of daily living of the elderly as a result.
On the other hand, a pilot elderly housing scheme called Senior
Citizens Residences Schemes (SEN) was developed by the HKHS in
2003 for older persons from better-off families by an innovative
life-lease approach. SEN adopted a mixed model of retirement
community and assisted living. SEN also provides comprehensive
and holistic services to the residents through the social service
agencies engaged by HKHS. Each applicant of the SEN should have
assets of one million Hong Kong dollars to ensure they can afford
their household expenditure. SEN is now providing 576 units and
they are fully occupied. In addition, according to Chui (2008), the
government launched Enhanced Home Care Teams (EHCS) and
Integrated Home Care Services Teams (IHCSs) in 2000 and 2003
respectively. As of March 2007, there are totally 3300 community-
living frail older persons served by the 18 EHCS teams and 61 IHCS
teams. These in-home services enable the community-living older
persons to prolong or even retain their domestic way of life, in a
place that they are familiar with and prefer.
Review of housing policies of other countries
In this sub-section, we discuss the prominent components and
options available for the elderly worldwide. In particular, we focus
on four countries: the US, Australia, the Netherlands and Denmark.
They are developed economies providing very wide range of
housing options. Hence we choose those four countries. It is
therefore worth considering, through their pioneer approaches, to
deal with elderly accommodation and elements of housing with
care included, such as retirement community and promotion of
homeownership. This can provide references for policy makers in
Hong Kong to implement housing policies for the elderly, particu-
larly for housing with care initiatives.
United States: retirement community
The development of senior housing in the US is the most mature
among the world. They started to develop their rst retirement
community in the 1960s. Continuing Care Retirement Communities
(CCRC) allow seniors to age in place, providing nursing services
and facilities that meet residents health and housing needs. Resi-
dents entering CCRC sign a long-term contract that provides for
Time required for allocation Successful cases Number of cases on
in 2007/08 waiting list
It depends on the availability of 1430 5410
public rental houses
It depends. The allocation could 630 1820
be done by 2 years if they are
willing to live in the New
Territories
14 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21
housing, services and nursing care in the community, enabling aged
people to remain in a familiar setting as they grow older.
Apart from retirement communities, there are three major types
of senior housing facilities in the US: congregate housing, board and
care homes and nursing homes. Congregate housing allows inde-
pendent living with basic household services. Meanwhile, board
and care homes provide communal dining facilities and personal
assistance services. In addition, the Social Health Maintenance
Organization and the Program for All Inclusive Care for the Elderly
(PACE) have had success in providing community-based in-home
services for older people in general and for those housed in mar-
ginal accommodation (Chui, 2008).
Australia: green retirement villages
In Australia, retirement villages have been widely accepted to
promote and enhance independence, choice and quality of life for
old people. Xia (2012) presents two cases of retirement villages in
South Australia and Queensland respectively. The retirement
village in South Australia is newly constructed with affordability as
the major concern of the developer. Sustainable practices were
identied, relating to a number of factors: the innovative design of
site and oor plans; adoption of thermally efcient building ma-
terials; orientation of windows; installation of water harvesting
and recycling systems, water conservation ttings and appliances;
and waste management during the construction stage. With the
adoption of these measures, the aim of developing a sustainable
retirement village can be achieved without a signicant amount of
additional capital costs. The case in Queensland is an old one for
decades, while the current practices in operation and maintenance,
e.g. public facilities and activities, medical and aged care service,
internal and external transportation service, etc. help to provide a
sustainable community for active ageing.
Besides retirement villages, the Federal Department of Health and
Family Services has launched the Assistance with Care and Housing
for the Aged (ACHA) Programme, which targeted insecurely housed
older people (Roberts, 1997). The ACHA programme is largely suc-
cessful, with improved care and/or housing outcomes for 80% of cli-
ents. Furthermore, the Community Aged Care Packages (CACP) have
also contributed to enabling older people to remain living in the
community instead of being institutionalized (Chui, 2008).
The Netherlands and Denmark: co-housing
The Netherlands and Denmark are the two countries that rst
introduced the co-housing scheme for senior citizens.
Elderly housing in the Netherlands has long been developed and
the policy is mature enough as a role model to other countries. In
Denmark, on the other hand, co-housing was invented 30 years ago.
The concept of co-housing is similar to the retirement community.
Under such concept, typically 20e30 families come together and
share communal neighbourhood. These families have common
space and facilities in addition to individual houses.
Co-housing schemes in Denmark are mainly social initiative.
There are now over 200 registered co-housing schemes and a few
private co-housing. Private co-housing schemes provide customer-
oriented service and those elderly in the Netherlands could use
their personalized care budget to buy services according to their
needs and preferences. Private co-housing schemes are also pop-
ular in both the Netherlands and Denmark. They combine the au-
tonomy of private dwellings with the advantages of community
living.
Other examples
There are other countries providing community in-home care
services to enable independent domestic living of the elderly. For
example, Canada has launched a programme of integrated care for
vulnerable community-dwelling older persons called SIPA which
has resulted in a 50% reduction in hospital alternative-level inpa-
tient stays (Chui, 2008). In Italy, integrated social and medical care
and case management provided by home care services have
improved elderly service users physical functions and reduced the
decline in cognitive status (Chui, 2008).
The above shows different housing policies for the elderly in
other countries. We can see that they provide a broad range of
housing options for elderly. Many of the housing schemes comply
with the principle of Housing with Care and enhance ageing in
place. When implementing Hong Kongs elderly housing policy, the
government can learn from the foreign experiences mentioned
above, and select those policies suitable to Hong Kong to implement.
Framework of study and research methodology
Before introducing our framework, we rst describe prospect
theory developed by Kahneman and Tversky (1979) and its appli-
cation to analysis of housing satisfaction level of elderly people. The
prospect theory is explained as follows (Kahneman & Tversky,
1979), Wikipedia (2013): a persons utility/value on different out-
comes can be represented by an S-shaped utility curve as shown in
Fig. 1. For each outcome x, we assign a utility/value vx to it. The
utility is zero at reference point, i.e. v0 0. Assuming most
people are risk-averse, for every outcome x > 0, vx > vx. This
can be seen in Fig. 1 that the utility curve is asymmetric. The elderly
person has two choices: the rst one is to stay in his/her current
housing (i.e. the reference point) to get zero utility. Consider all
possible outcomes x1 ; .; xn , the total utility is
X
n
U wpi vxi ; (1)
i1
where pi denotes the probability of the outcome xi , and w is the
probability weighting function.
The prospect theory can be applied to housing choices of
elderly people as follows: an elderly persons utility/value on
different housing options is represented by an S-shaped utility
curve as shown in Fig. 1. The reference point is taken as the elderly
persons current housing he/she is living in. The elderly person
has two choices: the rst one is to stay in his/her current housing
(i.e. the reference point) to get zero utility. The second choice is to
move out to nd alternative housing options available. For the
second choice, the elderly person would have a utility U dened
by (1), where xi are the all possible alternative outcomes. If U > 0,
the elderly person would move out to nd a better housing
available. Otherwise, he/she would rather stay in his/her current
housing. Hence when U is smaller, the elderly person would have
a lower expectation on his/her future new housing by moving out.
Therefore, he/she would have a lower incentive to move out and
Fig. 1. Prospect theory.
 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21 15

Factors (e.g. age, income, housing type)

Housing expectation

Housing satisfaction/preferences

Method to explore the framework

Small-scale survey focusing on elderlys: Focus group discussion

1. Existing housing arrangement 1. Analyze how the data could be interpreted

2. How they perceive their housing affordability 2. Assess how all those factors are interplaying
with each other
3. Satisfaction with existing housing conditions

Process and presentation of data

Findings

Policy recommendations

Fig. 2. The framework of study.

tend to stay in his/her current accommodation. As a result, he/she
would have a higher satisfaction level on his/her current housing.
The following gure shows the framework of our study and our
research methodology:
As in Fig. 2, a number of factors: age, income, housing type, etc,
affect an elderly persons expectation on housing. By Phillips et al.
(2004, 2005), residential satisfaction refers to individuals appraisal
of the conditions of their residential environment, in relation to
their needs, expectations and achievements. This implies that high
satisfaction would occur when the surrounding environment meets
the individuals needs or expectations. Therefore, elderly peoples
housing expectation would affect their level of satisfaction on their
housing. Besides Phillips et al. (2004, 2005)s framework, we also
use another different approach to explain the effect of housing
expectation on housing satisfaction, which is the prospect theory
described earlier in this section.
We explore the above framework by two ways. Firstly, we
conduct a small-scale survey from April to May 2007 to investi-
gate the housing preferences and the existing living environment
of the elderly people in Hong Kong. Over the past six years, the
overall living conditions of elderly people in Hong Kong havent
changed a lot, so the data is still valid. A total of 256 elderly re-
spondents (age 60 or above, as we want to study the housing
preferences of those who will reach the ofcial elderly age of 65 in
a few years, too) were randomly sampled from eight districts:
Wan Chai, Eastern District, Kowloon City, Kwun Tong, Shatin,
Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun and Sai Kung, in Hong Kong. Most of the
districts are relatively old districts with a larger proportion of
elderly people. Then the respondents were invited to attend a
face-to-face interview using structured questionnaires. With this
sampling method, the results, including the income proles and
the housing types of the elderly, are largely in line with the true
results, and hence are representative. This survey focused mainly
on the elderly peoples existing housing arrangement, how they
perceive their housing affordability1 and their satisfaction with
the existing housing conditions. Then their preferences of housing
1
Household should be able to occupy housing that meets well-established
(social sector) norms of adequacy (given household type and size) at a net rent
which leaves them enough income to live on without falling below some poverty
standard (Bramley, 1990: 16).
16 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21

Fig. 3. Monthly income of respondents.

as well as their expectation in accommodations in the medium
term were assessed.
Secondly, we arranged a focus group discussion session with
frontline social workers working closely with elderly people. The
purpose of the discussion is to analyze how the data could be
interpreted and to assess how all those factors are interplaying with
each other. Proposals for improvement in elderly housing ar-
rangements were also invited for consideration and assessment.
Thereafter, we present the data using tables and charts. We also
use statistical tools such as linear regression to analyze the data.
From our ndings, we draw some policy recommendations to
improve elderly housing in Hong Kong.
Findings
(including PRH and subsidized sale housing), while the remaining
live in private housing units. The ats occupied by these elderly
people were relatively smaller in oor area. Over 70% of re-
spondents occupied ats of size below 500 ft2, in which over 30% of
them were staying in public housing with less than 300 ft2 of oor
area while those living in private housing were with a wider range
of housing sizes.
In general, most respondents were from the lower strata and are
with limited means to cater for their housing arrangement. Figs. 3
and 4 illustrate the monthly income of respondents and their at
area.
Housing affordability, housing preferences, housing satisfaction &
housing expectation

Characteristics of respondents
Most of the respondents in this study were in the low-income
bracket, with only 13.4% having a monthly income of over
HK$4000. Almost two-third of respondents live in social housing
More than half of the respondents (58.7%) agreed that the
existing housing arrangement was within their range of afford-
ability (Fig. 5). In general, the elderly people interviewed had no
strong preferences in terms of housing structure and space
requirement. Most preferential factors were related to daily routine

Fig. 4. Flat area associate with respondents.

 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21 17

Don't know respondents were living in public rental ats (53%) or other sub-
Not applicable
4.0% sidized ats (11%). These two types of housing are provided with
13.9%
public subsidies as social welfare at a price low enough for even the
poorest. Additionally, rent assistance options are also available for
the most desperate households.
Table 4 shows the reasons for dissatisfaction of existing housing.
Not affordable Affordable Less than 10% who responded that they were not satised with
23.4% 58.7%
their housing arrangement, the most frequently-cited reasons for
their dissatisfaction were quality of at (20.6%), the ats were
not spacious enough (20.6%) and healthcare facilities (11.1%).
These respondents were mainly private housing residents.
Affordable Not affordable Not applicable Don't know To further analyze factors affecting elderly peoples satisfaction
level on housing, we develop a linear regression model as follows:
Fig. 5. Do you nd the housing expenditure affordable to you?

yt b0 b1 x1;t b2 x2;t b3 x3;t b4 x4;t b5 x5;t b6 x6;t 3t

management concerns, such as convenient transportation and
proximity to market. A signicant portion of respondents (10%) (2)
stated that they have no special preference on housing arrange- The variables in Eq. (2) are dened as in the following table:
ments (Table 2). Only the six independent variables stated in Table 5 are chosen
Under such low expectation atmosphere in housing preferences, because other factors are either difcult to quantify, or have a large
most respondents did not have strong dissatisfaction with their number of respondents giving no comment as the answer or
accommodation conditions. Just 9% indicated that they were not refusing to give an answer, so the total number of valid responses is
satised with their housing, while 60% were satised, and 18% greatly reduced, which can distort the results.
were even highly satised. Among those who were living in Of the total 256 respondents, 28 of them answered no
public housing, more than 83% stated that they were either comment or refused to provide an answer for either one of the
satised or highly satised with their existing housing, while variables stated in Table 5, so they are removed. This makes the
only less than one-tenth stated otherwise. On the other hand, for total number of valid respondents to be 228.
those who were living in private housing, still more than 68% felt Applying ordinary least square (OLS) regression to (2), the
satised or highly satised with their housing, about 13% felt following table shows the results:
not satised. In other words, old people living in public housing From Table 6, R2 is fairly high with a value of 0.83, while the p-
were comparatively more likely to feel satised and less likely to value of the F-statistic is about 0.0015. In overall, the model (1) ts
feel dissatised than those living in private housing. Table 3 sum- the data quite well. As expected, the signs of all the slope co-
maries the results as follows: efcients are positive, except that b b 5 is negative.
Note that 12 respondents answer no comment, and hence are At the 5% signicance level, b
b 1 and bb 6 are signicant. This shows
excluded from Table 3. Therefore, the total number becomes 244. that the following two factors: type of current housing and income
One of the main reasons for this high level of satisfaction is that level, affect respondents satisfaction on their current housing
most elderly found the housing expenditure affordable to them signicantly. In particular, income level is the most signicant factor,
(58.7%) (Fig. 5). This coincides with the fact that a majority of which is shown by b b having the smallest p-value of 0.0007. All other
6
b and b
four factors are insignicant at 5% level. In particular, b b have
5 4
the largest p-value of 0.74 and 0.54 respectively, showing that ed-
Table 2
The criteria of housing preference.
ucation level and age are the most insignicant factors. Further
explanation of this result is given in Discussion section.
The criteria of housing Cross-table with the response and the criteria of Furthermore, a focus group discussion about elderly housing in
preference housing preference
Hong Kong was conducted. The highlights of the focus group dis-
Count Column N% Responses Column cussion were shown in the following table:
responses %
From the above table, we can see that one of the major prob-
Convenient transport 137 55.5% 137 29.5% lems is that there are limited options of housing for elderly to
Proximity to market 102 41.3% 102 22.0% choose. Due to the importance of family preference, elderly people
Proximity to clinic 31 12.6% 31 6.7%
Proximity to sons and 12 4.9% 12 2.6%
cannot choose their at or move out themselves. Furthermore,
daughters their low affordability and physical disability also hinder them to
Proximity to park 30 12.1% 30 6.5% nd a way out. With regard to these problems, a number of sug-
Proximity to relatives 10 4.0% 10 2.2% gestions are made. This will be further discussed in Discussion
and friends
section.
Good social services 28 11.3% 28 6.0%
Suitable house size 10 4.0% 10 2.2%
Elderly-oriented 13 5.3% 13 2.8% Intention of moving
housing design
Good housing quality 21 8.5% 21 4.5%
Good property 14 5.7% 14 3.0% Of all respondents, 68.6% stated that they had no plan to move in
management the next ve years. Although 26.3% stated that they would move
There must be escalator 3 1.2% 3 0.6% within the next ve years, the majority of them were staying in a
Good public security 7 2.8% 7 1.5%
public housing estate which was in the governments redevelop-
No special 46 18.6% 46 9.9%
requirements ment plan in the coming years. In other words, their intention to
Total a
247 100.0% b
464 100.0% move was in fact an administrative necessity, i.e. the HAs plan. To
a
Valid number of respondents in this part.
rule out this portion, almost all respondents had no plan to move
b
Valid number of responses, respondents could choose maximum three items as within the next ve years or so. On one hand, this implies that
the criteria of their housing preference. ageing in place is the topmost preference of the elderly. On the
18 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21

Table 3
The correspondence table of the satisfaction level on current housing.

Housing type Are you satised with your current housing?

Highly satised Satised Neutral Unsatised Highly unsatised Total

Public rental ats 20 87 13 9 1 130

Sold public rental ats 3 9 0 1 0 13
a
HA subsidized sale ats 2 7 1 0 0 10
Public rental ats for the elderly 2 2 1 0 0 5
Private residential ats 16 37 15 10 1 79
Wooden house 1 2 0 0 0 3
Other 0 2 0 2 0 4
Total (%) 44 (18%) 146 (60%) 30 (12%) 22 (9%) 2 (1%) 244 (100%)
a
Home Ownership Scheme by Hong Kong Housing Authority.

other hand, it also implies that the elderly saw little or no chance to
seek housing improvement by moving in the coming years. By
contrast, those younger generations in society generally have
higher motivation to climb up the housing ladder.
Table 5
Explanation of the variables in the equation (1).
Discussion
Variable Description Value assigned Expected sign
of slope
Analysis of the results coefcient

y Satisfaction 0: Highly unsatised

Our results show a high level of satisfaction on current housing level on current 1: Unsatised
among the elderly, as seen in Table 3 that 78% of the respondents housing 2: Neutral
were highly satised or satised with their current housing. The 3: Satised
4: Highly satised
high satisfaction level of housing is in line with weak preferences of
x1 Type of housing 0: Private housing
housing and low intention of moving, as seen above where it was currently living (including private
found that 68.6% of the respondents had no plan to move in the in rental ats, wooden
next ve years. Although this study focuses at the grassroots level house and other private
(In our study, over 80% of the respondents earn less than $4000 a housing)
1: Public housing
month), Table 6 shows that respondents with a higher income level
(including public rental
has a signicantly higher satisfaction level on their current housing ats, sold public rental
than those earning less income. This is natural as with more in- ats, HA subsidized sale
come, the elderly people can spend more on improving their living ats and public rental
ats for the elderly)
environment, so they have a higher satisfaction level on their cur-
x2 Living time in 0: <1 year
rent accommodation. There may be other reasons for the high level current housing 1: 1e4 years
of housing satisfaction of the respondents. The possible reasons are 2: 5e9 years
summarized as follows: 3: 10e14 years
4: 15e19 years
5: >20 years
1. Most of the respondents live in public housing offered by the
x3 Living 0: Living alone
government. In our study, more than half of the respondents arrangement 1: Living with others
lived in public housing like public rental ats and HOS ats (see (spouse, son/daughter,
relatives, friends, or
other people)
Table 4 x4 Age 1: 60e64
The reasons for dissatisfaction of existing housing. 2: 65e69
3: 70e74
Reasons of Count Column N% Responses Column
4: 75e79
Dissatisfaction responses %
5: 80e84
Transportation 2 4.7% 2 3.2% 6: 85e89
network 7: 90
Too far away to 2 4.7% 2 3.2% x5 Education level 1: Kindergarten or 
shopping area below
Recreational facilities 5 11.6% 5 7.9% 2: Primary school
Healthcare facilities 7 16.3% 7 11.1% 3: Secondary school
Social services 3 7.0% 3 4.8% 4: Tertiary or above
Quality of at 13 30.2% 13 20.6% x6 Income per 0: No income
Flat does not match 5 11.6% 5 7.9% month 1: <$1000
with elderly needs 2: $1000e$1999
Flat is not spacious 13 30.2% 13 20.6% 3: $2000e$3999
enough 4: $4000e$5999
High rent/price 3 7.0% 3 4.8% 5: $6000e$7999
No escalator 4 9.3% 4 6.3% 6: $8000e$9999
Dont know 6 14.0% 6 9.5% 7: $10,000e$14,999
a b
Total 43 100.0% 63 100.0% 8: $15,000e$19,999
a 9: $20,000e$24,999
Valid number of respondents in this part.
b 10: $25,000e$39,999
Valid number of responses, respondents could choose more than one item in
11: >$40,000
this part.
 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21
Table 6
The result of the OLS regression model (2).
R2 F-statistic
0.8263 3.7328
i 1 2 3 4 5
b ats
b i 0.3067 0.0541 0.1804 0.0249 0.0252
t-Statistic 2.5386 1.4399 1.5710 0.6139 0.3313
p-Value 0.0118 0.1513 0.1176 0.5399 0.7407
Table 3). Most of the public housing estates in Hong Kong provide
the basic needs of the elderly and have better facilities than pri-
vate housing. With better living conditions, elderly people living
in public housing would tend to have a higher satisfaction level
on their housing. On the other hand, the conditions of most pri-
vate housing in Hong Kong which elderly people are living in are
rather poor. Some elderly people may even be living in sub-
divided ats. Their living conditions are poor and they have to
bear higher housing costs (see Literature review and background
section). Poor living conditions obviously lead to a lower satis-
faction level on current housing. Higher housing costs mean
lower affordability, which would also lower respondents satis-
faction level. This is because if households bear higher housing
costs, they have to reduce other expenses to meet their housing
needs. This in turn compromises their living standards (Oxfam,
2013). Of course, there are a few rich old people living in large
luxury mansions. However, these cases are rare in Hong Kong.
This explains why Table 6 shows that respondents living in public
housing have a signicantly higher satisfaction level on their
current housing than those living in private housing.
2. Many elderly people have physical disability (see Table 7), so
their ability to move is low and it is hard for them to adapt to live
in a new community. This factor contributes a lot to our result
that over two-third of respondents do not plan to move in the
next ve years (see Findings section). Since physical disability
hinders elderly peoples ability to move, their expectation on
their future housing by moving out is lower. Hence by prospect
theory, they tend to be satised with their current housing (see
Framework of study and research methodology section).
3. Many elderly people have already built up a strong sense of
belonging towards the community where they get used to living
for many years. In our study, about two-third of the respondents
have been living in their current accommodation for at least 10
years. Over 40% of them even have stayed in their current
housing for 20 years or more (see Table 8). Thus, their social
networks have been built and their sense of belonging towards
their community is developed. Therefore, they do not want to
move out as their long-built community would be lost, i.e. they
have a lower incentive to move. By prospect theory, this means
they have a lower expectation on their future housing by
moving out, and hence their level of satisfaction on their current
housing is higher (see Framework of study and research
methodology section). In our study, Table 6 also shows that
the longer time respondents have been living in their current
accommodation, the higher satisfaction level they have on their
current housing, though the effect is not so signicant (p-value
b 0:1513). This factor was often overlooked in previous
of b
2
studies. Even Phillips et al. (2004) did not include living time in
current housing as one of the independent variables.
Table 6 shows that when the age of respondents increases, their
satisfaction level also increases. However, at 5% signicance level,
this factor is highly insignicant. When people are approaching
19
Table 7
Highlights of the focus group discussion.
p-Value Dilemma:
0.0015
- Limited choices for the elderly even if they have their preferencesdthey can
6 only choose from old peoples home, public rental ats and private residential
0.1324
- Family preferences are over the elderly self-preferences; the elderly do not
3.4318
have the autonomy in choosing ats or moving out.
0.0007
- When aged parents cannot get along with their family, they are not able to
nd a way out due to low affordability and physical disability.
Case: A family purchased a subsidized sale at and added the elderly name as
one of the homeowners, she could not move back to PRH whenever they have
quarrel.
- They could not get nancial support from their children
- Physical disability
- Cannot get along with their neighbours but couldnt move due to complicated
procedures
- Limited resources in tackling with elderly housing problems
Preferences of the elderly:
- More willing to live in old peoples home nowadays
- Privacy
- Priority of housing preferences are always least important among elderly
basic needs
Suggestions:
- The living environment should be designed to match elderly physical needs
- Tailor-made environment in public rental housing, develop elderly services in
public estates
- (Existing) develop project like SEN
- (Existing) safety alarm service
- (Existing) all elderly ats are on ground oordmore convenient for aged
people
- (Existing) house-presidents system
- Concern on the frail classdthey are frail but not necessary live in hospital and
not yet sent to the public old peoples home
- Increase subsidy amount for private housing residents
- Reduce administrative procedures
- Community caring
their age of retirement, they would not have many ambitious goals
as normal adults do, so they have a lower expectation on their
future housing, and hence by prospect theory, a higher satisfaction
level on their current housing (see Framework of study and
research methodology section). However, since most people
ageing 60 or above are at their retirement stage, they just want to
enjoy their retirement and already have rather low expectation on
their housing, their housing expectation only reduces by a little
when their age further increases. Hence this effect becomes insig-
nicant. Therefore, the age of 60 may be treated as a cutoff point:
the effect that increasing age diminishes housing expectation is
signicant below this age, but insignicant above this age. Woos
(2013) results (see Literature review section) are similar to ours
that the Housing domain gets similar scores for the age groups
65e79 (4.15) and 80 (4.11), reecting these two age groups have
almost the same level of satisfaction on their housing. For the age
groups 35e49 and 50e64, this domain gets lower scores (3.88 and
3.95), showing that people of these two age groups have a lower
satisfaction level on their housing than those of 65 or above. Hence
the age of 65 may be treated as a cutoff point in this sense. How-
ever, those results are obtained from a survey targeted on residents
living in Shatin only. It needs to be investigated whether the same
results apply to Hong Kong as a whole.
The result in Table 6 also shows that respondents living with
others have a higher satisfaction level ( b
b 3 is positive with a p-value
of 0.1176) than those living alone. There are a number of reasons for
this. Firstly, quite a number of elderly people in Hong Kong have
20 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21
Table 8
Number of years living in the current housing by the respondents.
Number of years living in the current housing <1
Number of respondents 8 (3.1%)
physical disability. When they live together with others, other
people can provide care for them. This may improve their quality of
living and hence increase their level of satisfaction on their current
housing. Secondly, when elderly people live together with others,
they can talk to others living together with them when they want
to, reducing the feel of boring which is often faced by elderly people
living alone. Furthermore, people living together with the elderly
can bear some of the living costs of the elderly. This lessons their
burden, increases their affordability and hence satisfaction of their
current housing.
Implication: ageing in place
From the previous sub-section, we can see that physical
disability, better living environment of public housing and long
living time lead to elderly peoples higher satisfaction level on their
current accommodation. Most of them are reluctant to move. Hence
the governments housing policy should mainly aim at helping
elderly people to achieve ageing in place. In fact, as mentioned by
Chui (2008), the government and some NGOs have taken innovative
attempts to preserve a familiar environment for older people either
in a domestic or an institutional setting. The SEN projects, EHCS and
IHCS teams are good examples of policy initiatives which may pave
the way for a better environment for achieving ageing in place. For
those living in residential care homes, the government provides
funding to NGOs operating nursing homes, which amounts to the
costs of about half the total of about 70,000 places available. In
recent years, it has provided additional subsidies to the NGO-run
residential care homes to provide supplementary care and services
for increasingly frail older people, specically those suffering from
dementia. Moreover, the government encourages the conversion of
the former elderly hostels into care and attention homes which
provide a higher level of personal and nursing care for frail older
persons. Thus the original elderly residents need not move when
their physical conditions deteriorate (Chui, 2008).
However, there are several challenges to ageing in place in Hong
Kong. Firstly, urban redevelopment projects undertaken by the
public, and in particular, the private sector, have brought out
gentrication, which results in physical and social dislocation of
elderly people. As explained in Discussion section, many elderly
people have lived in their community for many years, and hence
have built their own social networks and have developed a sense of
belonging towards their community. Gentrication would destroy
their long-built social networks and community, in other words,
would lead to social dislocation. Chui (2001) explained that most of
Hong Kongs elderly people are poor in physical, nancial and social
aspects. They are at a disadvantage in facing the threat of urban
renewal. These special needs and problems of elderly people have
not been well attended to in the course of redevelopment. The
redevelopment projects have posed considerable threats to the
prospects of older people being able to grow old in the place they
are familiar with (Chui, 2008). Secondly, although Hong Kong is a
Chinese community, the Chinese traditional cultural values have
declined recently, causing less family and community support for
older people (Chui, 2008). The weakening of Chinese traditional
values of respecting elderly people and of neighbourhood care,
coupled with the nuclearization of families, all aggravate the plight
of elderly people (Chui, 2001).
1e4 5e9 10e14 15e19 >20
2 (8.2%) 56 (21.9%) 42 (16.4%) 25 (9.8%) 104 (40.6%)
To solve the above problems, the government should promote
careful gentrication in redevelopment projects. Careful gentri-
cation can take place in which the residents who have just moved
in, the gentriers, do not entirely replace the incumbent residents,
but are only integrated into the original community (Chui, 2008).
Hence the original community is preserved, and the elderly peoples
sense of belonging to their community can be remained. Careful
gentrication is practised in some countries such as the
Netherlands, Israel, Taiwan and Singapore. Moreover, the govern-
ment should also preserve Hong Kongs traditional cultural heritage
of venerating old people. As explained in the previous sub-section, in
our survey, respondents living with others have a higher satisfaction
level than those living alone because others can provide care for
them. Chi and Chow (1997) also show that in Hong Kong, elderly
people who are living with other family members are, in general,
receiving more support from those residing with them than are the
elderly who have relatives living away from them. In particular,
relatives living with the elderly people most often assisted with
household chores and rendered emotional support. The government
should encourage people to live together with their elderly parents
and provide more care and concern for them. For example, the
government can increase the amount of Dependent Parent/Grand-
parent Allowance for salaries tax. Furthermore, the HKHSs recent
launch of Harmony Place, the rst housing project with a mix of
private and elderly units in the same building in Hong Kong, is a good
initiative to encourage people to live together with their elderly
people. The government should build more such kinds of housing in
the future. These policies comply with the housing with care
principle. Only through more care and concern can the elderly
people live with dignity in a familiar environment.
Conclusion
In this paper, we adopt a new, indirect approach by examining
the factors affecting elderly peoples housing expectation, which in
turns affects their housing preferences, using prospect theory (the
rst study to apply prospect theory to investigate elderly housing).
We include living time in current housing, which was often over-
looked in previous studies, as a factor in our model. As elderly
people have been living in their communities for a long time, they
have already developed a strong sense of belonging towards their
communities and have built a mature social network. They cannot
move not only because they have physical disability, but also
because their long-built social network and community would be
lost (i.e. social dislocation). Therefore, ageing in place is most
preferable for them. This causes their low intention to move and
high level of satisfaction on their current housing. This is consistent
with, for example, Chui (2008)s ndings. What is more, this paper
used prospect theory, which had never been substantiated before,
to verify the results. Therefore, the governments housing policy
should help the elderly people to age in place more conveniently so
that they can live with dignity in a familiar environment.
Acknowledgement
We are grateful for the nancial support from the PolyU Internal
Research Grants (Project #GU755, G-YK32 and 4-ZZC1).
 E.C.M. Hui et al. / Habitat International 43 (2014) 11e21 21

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