Housing Our Ageing Baby Boomers

The implications and challenges of our increasingly ageing global population are many.

The increasingly ageing ‘baby boomers’ are people like me who are accustomed to living life the life we want, to being influential in the world and having life expectations met - this is not going to change just because we are getting older.

Addressing the challenges – and opportunities – in meeting our needs requires a shift in thinking.

As we move into our golden years, our generation will not accept the “put-up-with-it” attitude that our parents and grandparents accepted. We will want to live independently in our own environment for as long as possible.  

Homes are critical to enabling this. Yet, if the stairs are so steep, it’s impossible to climb them carrying the laundry or using a walker; or the doors won’t allow a wheelchair through and the sinks are too high - people are prevented from achieving their right to age independently in their own home.

New Zealand is starting to use lifetime design principles and the Lifemark is awarded to housing that has been designed and built so people can plan to safely and affordably stay in their home as their needs change over time.

Yet, this should extend into all areas of life – such as health and wellbeing. Most people now belong to a gym, yet how many of these gyms are thinking about the needs of their ageing customer base?

What changes will be needed to the equipment, the staff training, the music, classes and instructors on offer when two-thirds of the members are grey?

The challenges – and the opportunities – exist for the business sector as a whole. Catering for an ageing population may be the immediate commercial imperative for adopting lifetime design principles in planning, design and marketing – but in reality business will find that developing products for an aging population will position them well for the diverse needs of it NZ’s whole population- from children, families and the elderly through to those with disabilities.

Sadly, New Zealand is a long way behind other developed countries in addressing these critical issues. Countries such as Japan began talking about housing an ageing population more than 20 years ago and are now addressing it at a practical level. Yet in New Zealand, the talking has only just started.

In part, we can thank the leaky building crisis for stimulating this important debate, bringing to the fore critical issues such as the fact that we haven't got enough housing, that it is of a very poor quality and it is dislocated from where the population is.

This brings great relevance to the fundamental and urgent need for housing in New Zealand that is useable by the whole diversity of people who live here.

print