Having the Next Generation in Mind: Housing Pathways
of Older Homeowners in a Romanian Rural Community
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1
Research Institute for Quality of Life, Romanian Academy
2
Research Institute of the University of Bucharest
3
University of Bucharest
Submission date: 2022-10-26
Acceptance date: 2023-05-11
Publication date: 2023-09-27
Polish Sociological Review 2023;223(3):395-412
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
In this paper we set out to understand the housing pathways of older people who live in precarious
prosperity in rural Romania. The stratum of precarious prosperity (Budowski et al. 2010) is a rather invisible
and heterogenous social category whose household strategies and biographies are particularly understudied.
Our purpose is to describe and explain micro-events in the housing histories of older Romanians belonging to
this stratum and to understand agency in housing strategies in time and space. The data we use comes from
a qualitative panel study conducted in a rural community in Romania. The results show that the housing pathways
available to older people in the village studied are strongly embedded in family ties, intergenerational support,
and co-residence housing strategies, as well as in housing policies that provide inadequate institutional support
for meeting housing standards and increasing the quality of housing.
FUNDING
The data was collected during the project “A Comparative Perspective on Precarious Prosperity and Household Strategies in Romania and Switzerland in Times of Economic Strain,” funded through the Swiss-Romanian Cooperation Programme, between 2013–2016. The current design, with new research questions and conceptual development, was elaborated within the project “AMASE—
A multidimensional approach to social exclusion in later life—health consequences for ageing populations.” The research leading to these results has received funding from Norway Grants 2014–2021 under Project Contract No. 16/2020.