1. AGEING AND
PERCEPTION OF
ENVIRONMENTAL
QUALITY
Marcela Petrová Kafková
Office for Population Studies, FSS MU, Brno
kfkv@seznam.cz

2. Environmental quality by ageing
• Low mobility of older people
– 24% live in the same house/flat all their life, average age of
moving into their current home 33 years
• Long-term users of local environment
• Higher preference of older people for ageing in place
(Lanspery 2002)
• Increased use of home and immediate neighbourhood
with ageing (Sýkorová 2008)
• Poor environmental quality tends to decrease outdoor
mobility of older people and their independence

3. Theoretical background – quality of life
• Environment as a key constituent and dynamic context
of quality of life by ageing (Walker 2010)
• Structural characteristics of buildings and
neighbourhoods affect the residents´ QoL (Disch et al
2007)
• Relationship between residential satisfaction and
psychological well-being is an artifact of their mutual
relationship with personal resources. (Swirian, Swirian
1993)
• Some people indicate high well-being in spite of
environmental stressors (Smith 2009)

4. Neighbourhood satisfaction

5. Neighbourhood satisfaction by age

6. IADL by age
• Higher age → lower
(IADL - score range 0-7,
neighbourhood a lower score indicates a higher
satisfaction level of dependence) :
Age group Mean
• Poorer health → lower
neighbourhood 60-69 6,7 (±0,9)
satisfaction
70-79 6,2 (± 1,4)
80+ 5,6 (± 2,0)
• No influence of gender
and education

7. Neighbourhood perception
"the neighbourhood is mostly… " (range 1-5) (%)
bad address 3 7 34 33 23 good ad.
cheap 2 8 43 31 16 expensive
grey 7 18 31 29 17 green
deserted 1 7 51 30 11 overcrowded
changing 9 21 37 21 13 the same
safe 6 22 41 22 9 dangerous
young 5 15 51 21 8 old
clean 14 24 36 20 7 dirty
noisy 16 27 32 18 7 quiet
poor 3 13 59 19 6 wealthy
interesting 11 28 47 10 4 boring
0% 20% 40% 50% 60% 80% 100%

8. A good neighbourhood (agreement )
"in the neighbourhood there are…"
total Age Education
60-69/80+
well-lit streets at night 78%
a few places to relax 68% elementary
61%
enough pedestrian crossings and traffic lights 66% 69/62% elementary
to cross safely 56%
enough green belts 58%
new houses being built and the old ones 57% tertiary 66%
under reconstruction
I have a beautiful view from my home. 46%
It is often possible to see police patrols. 45%
My home is in a quiet zone. 42%
enough pleasant benches 41%

9. Enough pedestrian crossings and traffic
lights to cross safely
• The assessment doesn´t seem to be affected by
poorer locality of people with elementary
education but by education itself
• No influence of subjective health and IADL
• Less agreement by people with more health
limitations (worse sight, worse hearing, pain of
locomotor system)

10. A good neighbourhood (agreement )
"in the neighbourhood there are…"
total Age Education
60-69/80+
well-lit streets at night 78%
a few places to relax 68% elementary
61%
enough pedestrian crossings and traffic lights 66% 69/62% elementary
to cross safely 56%
enough green belts 58%
new houses being built and the old ones 57% tertiary 66%
under reconstruction
I have a beautiful view from my home. 46%
It is often possible to see police patrols. 45%
My home is in a quiet zone. 42%
enough pleasant benches 41%

11. A poor neighbourhood
"in the neighbourhood there is/are…"
total Age 60- Gender Education
69/80+ M/W Elem/ter
very heavy traffic 63%
casinos and night bars 48% 50/40%
many unknown people and homeless ones 47% 56/40
roving around
a lot of houses painted with graffiti and 46% 50/43
vandalised
badly kept pavements in winter 42% 38/55% 38/45
a lot of of rubbish 34% 41/37
more and more tourists 32% 29/38
I don´t like newly built houses, they don´t fit 28%
here
a lot of very old houses and deserted houses 19% 18/13% 24/10
without occupants

12. A safe neighbourhood
• It is quite dangerous to go out in the evening
– 54% agree
– 60-69 years old 51 %, 70-79 years old 54 %., 80+ 64%
– Education: elementary 63%, vocational 53%, secondary 54%,
tertiary 46%
• It is quite dangerous to go out during the day
– 22% agree
– Education: elementary 31%, vocational 24%, secondary 20%,
tertiary 12%

13. Neighbourhood satisfaction
It is quite dangerous
It is quite dangerous to to go out during the
go out in the evening day
agree disagree agree disagree
neighbourhood
satisfaction 57% 80% 50% 72%
happiness (mean) 5,3
(1- very happy) 5,0 (±2,1) 4,4 (±1,8) (±1,9) 4,5 (±2,2)

14. • Poor vs. good neighbourhood
– r =-0,34, p < 0,001
– More positive aspects = less negative aspects
• Good neighbourhood vs. Neighbourhood
satisfaction
– R = 0,47, p < 0,001
– better neighb. = higher satisfaction with neighb.
• Poor neighbourhood vs. Neighbourhood
satisfaction
– R = -0,39, p < 0,001
– Poorer neighb. = less satisfaction with neighb.

15. A good neighbourhood
• Index score range 1-4 (1 = max good
neighbourhood)
• No influence of age, gender and education
• No influence of subjective health but slightly
affected by IADL and sense limitations
– IADL r = -0,15, p <0,001 (more independent =
better neighbourhood)
– Sense limitations r = 0,11 , p <0,001 (less limitations
= better neighbourhood)

16. A poor neighbourhood
• Index score range 1-4 (1 = max poor neighbourhood)
• No influence of age, gender and education
• Some influence of health
– Subjective heath r = -0,16, p <0,001 (poorer health =
poorer neighbourhood)
IADL r = 0,17, p <0,001 (less independent = poorer
neighbourhood)
– Sense limitations r = -0,20 , p <0,001 (more limitations =
poorer neighbourhood)

17. neighbourhood and quality of life (r)
satisfaction
good poor with n.
PGC Morale
Scale -0,16 0,13 -0,23
loneliness 0,13 -0,16 0,15
agency -0,2 0,2 -0,18
happiness 0,19 -0,23 0,28
All correlations sig. p < 0,001

18. Conclusions
• Neighbourhood quality
– Older people judge their neighbourhood mostly positive
– Only some specific aspects of environmental quality
affected by socio-demographic characteristics
– Perceived as worse with increasing health limitations
• Influence of neighbourhood quality on quality of life
– Some indications that quality of life tends to increase with
better neighbourhood quality

19. Thank you for your
attention.