Health decline and residential transitions among older adults in Europe

Residential mobility is a possible strategy to cope with health challenges in later life. However, little research has examined whether and how health decline triggers residential mobility and whether this relationship differs between parents and childless individuals. Using data on parents and non-parents aged 50+ from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we perform multinomial logistic regression to examine how recent and previous health events (defined as a decline in acute health, functional limitation, frailty and self-rated health) influence the 2-year probability of transitions between care arrangements. We find that recent and previous health declines are not triggering moves towards intergenerational co-residence, but acute health events, functional limitation and worsened frailty are associated with transitions to home-based care for parents and non-parents alike. Additionally, previous health declines have a stronger influence on most residential transitions compared to recent health declines across parental status, suggesting that it takes time for health decline to induce residential mobility. Our findings demonstrate the importance of viewing late-life residential mobility from a relational framework and highlight home-based care as a key strategy for responding to health challenges in later life.