LAUSR

The availability of local support and care infrastructures at the place of residence is an important issue for the elderly living in rural areas. Spatial mobility can be seen as a strategy to cope with a lack of local care facilities. This study analyzes the preferences of older people living in long-term relationships concerning support and care arrangements. Furthermore, it is analyzed how far and under which circumstances older couples are willing to relocate their place of residence in response to regional care infrastructures. Using a quasi-experimental survey design, inhabitants of a small rural community aged over 50 years were interviewed and confronted with descriptions of fictitious situations with randomized options for moving residence. A Tobit model estimation method is applied to examine the determinants of older couples' care-related willingness to move their residence.The results show that most people prefer either the support of their own partner or outpatient care. Residential care is especially preferred by people aged 75 years and above, whereas new forms of support, such as senior cooperatives, are evaluated as attractive especially by younger age groups. Thus, information and advisory campaigns should address the target group in question even at an early stage in older peoples' life course. Care-related willingness to move home of couples aged 50 years and more is significantly determined by local provision of support and care infrastructures. The expansion of any care infrastructure at older peoples' place of residence can significantly reduce their willingness to move. In particular an increased availability of outpatient care is associated with a comparatively large reduction in couples' likelihood to move. In this way local commitment to rural areas can be sustained and rural depopulation can be prevented. At an alternative place of residence assisted living and residential care in particular can significantly enhance the willingness to relocate and can thus generate incentives to move for older couples.