A Conceptual Framework for Quality Improvement of Senior Housing Programs

The growing number of older people has become a critical social and economic challenge globally. In Taiwan, the proportion of people aged 65 and over had exceed 14% since 2018 and the Taiwan government plans to develop housing communities for the growing population of older adults, but the public's preferences for senior housing are diversified and require further consideration. This study constructed a conceptual framework based on the choice experiment approach from social, physical and management dimensions. Five assessing attributes and one price attribute regarding senior housing were included and recombined to generate various choice alternatives. These choice alternatives were then incorporated into questionnaires to further examine respondents' preferences and willingness to pay toward senior housing construction using random parameter logit (RPL) and latent class model (LCM). We found that respondents preferred professional care service the most, followed by the inclusion of family rooms, accessible housing, and various security measures by RPL model. Using LCM analysis, this study further identified that respondents who were younger, highly educated, had older family members, and had previous experience with senior housing had stronger preferences for attributes such as professional care, convenient transportation, security, family rooms, accessible facilities and intergenerational housing. Our findings reinforce the significance of including professional care, security option, and family room for senior housing. These results can be references for authorities when planning the senior housing sector and developing senior housing welfare policy.