Older people, house-sitting and ethics of care

Abstract

Urbanisation, housing affordability and an ageing population are key focus areas in major cities in Australia and worldwide. A lack of affordable housing is affecting a greater number of people, and particularly, a growing number of older populations. This paper draws inspiration from Power and Mee (Housing Studies, 35(3), 496, 2020) and asks: ‘is this a housing system that cares?’ The paper explores opportunities for care that emerge from practices of house-sharing and in particular house-sitting. Findings from semi-structured interviews with older house-sitters (aged 50 years and over) suggested house-sitting provides an affordable shelter for older people experiencing financial insecurity, thus has the potential to increase their capacity for care-related expenditure. Housing mobility, insecure tenure and a lack of a caring governance to manage the relationship between owners and sitters can however put older house-sitters in a vulnerable position, leading to negative impacts on their wellbeing. The research findings inform housing policy-makers and researchers about the growing practices of house-sitting among older people, and help grow and sustain a housing system that cares.

Keywords:

• Sharing economy
• house-sitting
• older people
• housing affordability
• ethics of care
• wellbeing

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express appreciation to Professor Caryl Bosman and Dr Fahimeh Khalaj for their valuable insight and input into this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In the context of house-lessness, ‘older people’ refers to those aged 55 years and over (AIHW, 2018a).

2 (F (Full-time) or P (Part-time) house-sitter, age)

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland.