Revised Nordic approaches to housing and ageing - Current concepts and future needs

The Nordic countries have a reputation for having both universal welfare systems and high housing standards. However, the demographic development and ageing in place policies bring challenges to the present housing and care services for the older population. During the last decades, there has been a significant decrease in the coverage of care for older people. This is related to the increase of older people as well as challenges related to the availability of the workforce and raising care costs. This development is leading to increasing demand for various supportive housing solutions for seniors and older people. The objective of this paper is to provide a comparative overview of existing housing solutions for seniors and older people in Nordic countries. The objective of the comparative descriptive analyses is to point out the challenges and future possibilities for housing. This is illustrated by some new cases all of them showing solutions that enable older people to continue being a part of city life in their own neighbourhoods. They also show a variety of solutions that at the same time gives possibilities to live in-dependently and live interdependent in different kind of co-housing and neighbourhoods. This paper highlights the need for a more systematic evaluation of housing solutions for older people across the Nordic countries, to be able to learn from each other and to be able to manage the impacts of the ageing society for the welfare system.