Social and cultural factors that influence residential location choice of urban senior citizens in China – The case of Chengdu city

Abstract

With the graying of Chinese society increasing, elderly people who do not live with their family's younger generations has become common. Social and cultural factors have powerful psychological implications for elders in residential location choice making, with the premise of affordability. This preliminary study, is one of the first to examine systematic social and cultural factors of residential location choice, and classifies senior citizens by pre-retirement occupation. Survey data were obtained via three in-depth interviews from 2013 to 2015, and a large-scale questionnaire survey from August 15 to September 16 in 2015. Structural equation modeling results show that perception of comfort, perception of presence, and perception of convenience have marked effects, and perception of affection is not conspicuous on decision-making. Moreover, there are differences in social and cultural factors of elders according to different age periods and pre-retirement occupations. These findings highlight social and cultural demands by elders in residential location choices, and provides a basis for subsequent study on elderly dwelling location choice.