Occupants housing satisfaction: does age really matter?

Abstract

Scholars from diverse disciplines have established how objective and subjective housing attributes influence occupants’ housing satisfaction. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of age grouping on overall housing satisfaction with respect to private housing development in Abuja, Nigeria. Samples of 112 structured questionnaires were systematically administered to the occupants of Prince and Princes Housing Estate. Sixty-six were subsequently retrieved for analysis representing 74% response rate. Descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance was conducted, and the result indicates that there was a statistically significant difference for total housing satisfaction between age groups. A Tukey’s post hoc test revealed that housing satisfaction was statistically significantly higher in the 61 and above age group in the sample. The result implies that there is a need to incorporate specific demographic changes such as in age groups in residential housing development and policy plan especially in developing countries. The study also contributes to further our understanding on the relationship between resident’s socio-demographic characteristics and housing satisfaction. This paper represents first housing satisfaction studies that examines age factor to determine level of variation in housing satisfaction between various age groups in private housing development in the Nigerian context.

Keywords

• housing satisfaction
• demographic factor
• age
• private housing
• Abuja
• Nigeria