Housing in Old Age: Dynamical Interactions Between Neighborhood Attachment, Neighbor Annoyance, and Residential Satisfaction

ABSTRACT

Objective: Residential satisfaction and neighborhood quality play major roles in aging well. However, longitudinal research about the interplay between such factors is still sparse. Our 1-year study examined whether change in residential satisfaction was associated with change in two indicators of neighborhood quality: neighborhood attachment and neighbor annoyance.

Methods: Findings come from a longitudinal study with 85 community-dwelling German older adults (age range: 60 to 92 years). Participants filled out questionnaires at two measurements that were 1 year apart. The interplay between residential satisfaction and neighborhood was explored using a cross-path model.

Results: Higher levels of residential satisfaction predicted enhanced attachment and reduced annoyance over time. Moreover, attachment predicted positive change in residential satisfaction over the course of 1 year.

Conclusion: Results suggest that older adults may apply adaptive behaviors and strategies to optimize their neighborly experiences. Such findings have implications for improving residential satisfaction in community-dwelling older adults.

KEYWORDS:

• Older adults
• residential satisfaction
• neighborhood annoyance
• neighborhood attachment
• housing
• community-dwelling

Funding

This research was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (16SV5703).

Declaration of conflict

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.