Who Will Want to Stay in a Home for the Elderly: Financial Strain, Kin Availability, and Attitudes toward Staying in Homes for the Elderly among Older Adults in the Philippines

Josefina Natividad, University of the Philippines

Using data from the 1996 Philippine Elderly Survey, a survey on a nationally representative sample of older adults in the Philippines the paper examines the effects of financial strain and kin availability on the acceptance of the elderly of the idea of establishing Homes for the Aged in the Philippines and their willingness to stay in one in the future. Homes for the elderly are currently not common in the Philippines where the prevalent living arrangement for older people is coresidence with children. Government and religious-run institutions tend to cater to the abandoned elderly. An expression of willingness to live in this alternative arrangement may indicate stresses associated with financial strains experienced by the economically dependent elderly as well as social and demographic changes that threaten kin availability. The effects of sociodemographic factors of age, gender, marital status, education and of self-assessed health are also explored as intervening variables that affect willingness to stay in a Home.