Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-10T06:18:24.474Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Understanding Attitudes to Paying for Care amongst Equity Release Consumers: citizenship, solidarity and the ‘hardworking homeowner’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

LOUISE OVERTON  and
LORNA FOX O'MAHONY
LOUISE OVERTON
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Work, School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK email: l.e.overton@bham.ac.uk
LORNA FOX O'MAHONY
Affiliation:
Faculty of Humanities, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK email: lfox@essex.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The importance of developing a system that is perceived to be ‘fair’ is a central element in debates about long-term care funding in the UK. It is therefore surprising that while previous research has established that older people tend to resent the idea of using housing equity, and other personal assets, it has often revealed little about the factors underpinning these attitudes or reflected on how they sit within a wider frame of social and political norms. Drawing on 60 semi-structured in-depth interviews with older home owners who have released equity from their homes, this paper explores why people feel that it is fair, or unfair, to require owners to use their housing equity to fund long-term care needs, once factors like reluctance to trade on the home, and mistrust of equity release products, have been excluded. While a small majority of our participants considered it unfair, a substantial minority thought it fair that they were required to use their accumulated housing equity to meet care needs. This distribution of attitudes enabled us to explore the reasons why participants held each view, and so reflect on the impact of pro-social and pro-individual norms in shaping attitudes towards intra-generational fairness and ideas about ‘responsible citizenship’. Our analysis posits that the factors that shape attitudes toward using housing assets to pay for care, and their relationship to the wider rhetorical framework of asset accumulation, management and decumulation, have been misunderstood by policy makers. We discuss the implications of our findings for policies that seek to promote the development of a housing-asset based care funding system capable of attracting widespread support.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 49 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Association of British Insurers (2014), Developing Products for Social Care, available online, https://www.abi.org.uk/~/media/Files/Documents/Publications/Public/2014/Social%20care/Developing%20Products%20for%20Social%20Care%20Report.ashx Google Scholar
Age UK (2014), Care in Crisis – What's next for social care? London: Age UK.Google Scholar
Boreham, R. and Lloyd, J. (2007), Asset Accumulation across the Life Course, London: ILC.Google Scholar
Burrows, R. (2003), ‘How the other half lives: An exploratory analysis of the relationship between poverty and home-ownership in Britain’ Urban Studies, 40: 7, 1223–42.Google Scholar
CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) (2012), Reverse Mortgages – Report to Congress. Available at http://www.consumerfinance.gov/reports/reverse-mortgages-report/ (accessed 29 December 2015).Google Scholar
Commission on Funding of Care and Support (2011), Fairer Care Funding, Volume I, The Report of the Commission on Funding of Care and Support, Commission on Funding of Care and Support, London: The Stationary Office.Google Scholar
Croucher, K. and Rhodes, P. (2006), Testing Consumer Views on Paying for Long-Term Care, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Daily Mail (2014), ‘Revealed: How 10,000 families are paying massive care home bills they don't need to . . . and how to make sure it doesn't happen to you’ (13 June 2014), online at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2657540/Revealed-How-10-000-families-paying-massive-care-home-bills-dont-need-make-sure-doesnt-happen-you.html Google Scholar
Deeming, C. and Keen, J. (2003), A fair deal for care in older age? Public attitudes towards the funding of long-term care, Policy and Politics, 31 (4), pp. 431–446.Google Scholar
Department of Health (DoH) (2013), ‘Landmark reform to help elderly with care costs’ press release, February 2013, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/landmark-reform-to-help-elderly-with-care-costs Google Scholar
Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), (2009), Spending priorities in the benefits system: Deliberative research with the public, Research Report No 559, London: DWP.Google Scholar
Doling, J. and Ronald, R. (2010), ‘Home ownership and asset-based welfare’, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 25: 2, 165–173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorling, D, Rigby, J., Wheeler, B., Ballas, D., Thomas, B., Eldin, F., Bordon, D. and Lupton, R. (2007), Poverty, wealth and place in Britain, 1968–2005, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Erens, B. and Turner, R. (1997), National survey on care for elderly people, London: Social and Community Planning Research.Google Scholar
Finch, J. and Mason, J. (2000), Passing on: Kinship and inheritance in England, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fox O'Mahony, L. and Overton, L. (2014), Financial advice, differentiated consumers and the regulation of equity release transactions, Journal of Law and Society, 41 (3), pp. 446–469.Google Scholar
Fox O'Mahony, L. and Overton, L. (2015b), ‘Asset-based welfare, equity release and the meaning of the owned home’, Housing Studies, 29: 446–469.Google Scholar
Glendinning, C., Davies, B., Pickard, L. and Comas-Herrera, A. (2004), Funding Long-Term Care for Older People: Lessons from Other Countries, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Gubrium, E. K, Pellissery, S. and Lødemel, I. (2013), The Shame of It: Global Perspectives on anti-poverty policies, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Gurney, C. (1999), ‘Lowering the Drawbridge: A Case Study of Analogy and Metaphor in the Social Construction of Home-Ownership’ Urban Studies, 36: 10, 1705–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamnett, C., Harmer, M. and Williams, P. (1991), As Safe as Houses: Housing Inheritance in Britain, London: Paul Chapman.Google Scholar
Hewitson, B., Seale, B. and Joyce, L. (2011), Commission on Funding of Care and Support, Public engagement exploring care and support funding options, TNS-BMRB Report of findings 224301.Google Scholar
Hills, J. (2014), Good times, bad times: the welfare myth of them and us, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
HM Government (2009), Shaping the Future of Care Together, Cm 7673, London: The Stationary Office.Google Scholar
House of Lords Select Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change (2013), Ready for Ageing? London: The Stationary Office.Google Scholar
Ipsos Mori (2011), Public opinion research on social care funding - A literature review on behalf of the Commission on the Funding of Care and Support, London: Ipsos Mori.Google Scholar
Jarvis, C., Stuchbury, R. and Hancock, R.(1998), ‘Present indicative: findings from the ONS omnibus survey for the millennium debate of the age’, Age Concern: London.Google Scholar
Kraus, M., Czypionka, T., Riedel, M., Mot, E. and Willemé, P. (2011), How European Nations Care for Their Elderly. A New Typology of Long-term Care Systems. Assessing Needs of Care in European Nations (ANCIEN) Policy Brief. Available online at http://www.ancien-longtermcare.eu/policy_briefs Google Scholar
McKee, K. (2012), ‘Young People, Homeownership and Future Welfare’ Housing Studies, 27: 6, 853–862.Google Scholar
Mossialos, E., Dixon, A., Figueras, J. and Kutzin, J. (eds.), (2002), Funding health care: options for Europe, Buckingham: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maxwell, D. and Sodha, S. (2006), Housing Wealth: First timers to old timers, London: IPPR Google Scholar
Mayhew, L. and O'Leary, D. (2014), Unlocking the potential, London: DEMOS.Google Scholar
Nyce, S. A. and Schieber, S. J. (2005), The Economic Implications of Aging Societies: The Costs of Living Happily Ever After, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
ODPM and HM Treasury (2005), Extending Home Ownership, London: ODPM.Google Scholar
Ong, R., Jefferson, T., Wood, G., Haffner, M. and Austen, S. (2013), Housing Equity Withdrawal: Uses, Risks, and Barriers to Alternative Mechanisms in Later Life, AHURI Final Report No. 217 (Melbourne: Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute).Google Scholar
ONS (2015), Wealth in Great Britain Wave 4, 2012–214, Chapter 3: Property Wealth, Wealth in Great Britain, 2012–2014, available online at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/was/wealth-in-great-britain-wave-4/2012-2014/index.html Google Scholar
Opinion Leader (2009), It's a heck of a gamble, isn't it? Attitudes of older people towards the use of assets for pooling risk of care costs, A report by Opinion Leader for Age Concern England, London: Age Concern.Google Scholar
Overton, L. (2010), Housing and Finance in Later life: A study of UK equity release customers, London: Age UK.Google Scholar
Overton, L. and Fox O'Mahony, L. (2015a), Consumer Demand for Retirement Borrowing, London: Council for Mortgage Lenders.Google Scholar
Parker, G. and Clarke, H. (1997), ‘Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? Paying for care in old age’, Social Policy and Administration, 31: 2, 119–35.Google Scholar
Pickard, L. (2013), ‘A growing care gap? The supply of unpaid care for older people by their adult children in England to 2032’, Ageing and Society, 35: 1, 96–123.Google Scholar
Prabhakar, R. (2008), The Assets Agenda, London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Price, D., Bisdee, D., Daly, T., Livsey, L. and Higgs, P. (2014), ‘Financial planning for social care in later life: the ‘shadow’ of fourth age dependency, Ageing and Society, 34, pp 388–410.Google Scholar
Rowlingson, K. and McKay, S. (2005), Attitudes to Inheritance in Britain, York: JRF.Google Scholar
Rowlingson, K. (2006), ‘Living poor to die rich’? or ‘spending the kids’ inheritance? Attitudes to assets and inheritance in later life, Journal of Social Policy, 35 (2), pp. 175–192.Google Scholar
Searle, B. and McCollum, D. (2014), ‘Property-based welfare and the search for generational equality’, International Journal of Housing Policy, 14: 4, 325–43.Google Scholar
Smith, S. J. and Searle, B. A. (2008), ‘Dematerialising money: the ebb and flow of wealth between housing and other things’, Housing Studies, 23: 1, 21–43.Google Scholar
Spencer, L., Ritchie, J. and O'Connor, W. (2003), ‘Carrying out Qualitative Analysis’ in Ritchie, J. and Lewis, J. (eds.), Qualitative Research Practice, London: Sage, pp. 219–262.Google Scholar
Taylor-Gooby, P. (2008), ‘Choice and Values: individualized rational action and social goals’, Journal of Social Policy, 37: 2, 167–1.Google Scholar
Toussaint, J. and Elsinga, M. (2009), Exploring ‘housing asset-based welfare’: Can the UK be held up as an example for Europe? Housing Studies, 24 (5), pp. 669–692.Google Scholar
The World Bank (2004), Averting the Old Age Crisis: Policies to Protect the Old and Promote Growth, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Willetts, D. (2010), The Pinch, London: Atlantic books.Google Scholar