Younger residents of retirement villages are at war with older generations who feel they are being treated like “lepers”, according to an academic study.
Researchers interviewed 40 residents at four developments across England and were “surprised” to find the people they termed the “Peter Pans” were often at loggerheads with their older neighbours, who they said felt ostracised and “othered”.
John, a 73-year-old resident, said: “We don’t want to be tripping over Zimmer frames the whole time.” 78-year-old Margaret, another retiree, said of residents with mobility issues: “They shouldn’t be here!”
She added: “They should go into a care home. We’re not carers!”
On the other side of the divide, David, 80, said. “The care and tolerance in the community isn’t there.
“I don’t think people here understand what getting old is all about.”
Peter, a 78-year-old resident, said younger members of the community treated his dementia-afflicted wife as a “leper”, and that “no one actually wants to get close to her”.
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Findings from a study called We Are Good Neighbours, But We Are Nor Carers, put the “clash” down to how the communities are advertised to both types of potential residents as somewhere they would fit in.
Presenting the study in Liverpool this year, Dr Sam Carr, a senior lecturer at Bath University and Dr Chao Fang, a sociology lecturer at Liverpool University, found that companies’ approaches to marketing older people’s developments could, ironically, promote ageism.
The interviews done in England were added with 40 interviews done in Australian developments. All residents were aged between 55 and 93, with an average age of 79, and the developments had a mixture of purchased and rented houses and flats, built for “independent living”.
Such communities are well established in Australia and the United States and are becoming more and more sought after in the UK.
The study, which aimed to explore experiences of living in retirement communities, found that half of those interviewed had moved into a village “prompted by dependency”. The other half formed a “pre-dependent” group whom they called “Peter Pans”.
‘Sold different ideas’
Research also found both groups felt they had been “sold” different ideas of what retirement living could deliver.
The researchers said that trying to appeal to those who want an active retirement risked causing ageism. “Ageism may be amplified by retirement villages that strongly promote an image of ‘active independent living’,” the study says.
Other UK retirement community residents supplied more evidence to the study of there being an “us” and “them”.
Ralph, 72, said: “The average age here is nearly 80. That’s not ‘active retirement’, is it? Someone moved in who was 94?!”
Paul, 74, said about his community: “I don’t think people are vetted enough. I think the main criteria is you’ve got the money.”
Roy, 72, said: “This is advertised as independent living for the over-55-year-olds [but] we feel we are in an ‘old people’s home’.”
The study says: “The tensions this created when such residents lived alongside each other were clear to see in our data set, and careful consideration is required in relation to what older people are ‘sold’ when they move to a retirement community.”
It also questioned whether communities designed for “older people” are a desirable model, if they “inadequately recognise the diverse and conflicting needs of an extremely wide range of people”. But it adds that some residents “deeply value supporting those more dependent than themselves” and do contribute to “a sense of inclusivity within the community”.