Essay
Finding the Middle Market: Creating A Senior Living Product That Will Serve Middle-Income Americans
Washington State University
Spring 2021
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000003782
Abstract
By 2050, there will be more than 80 million residents in the United States who are over the age of 65, and of those, roughly 8.75 million are expected to reside in senior living communities. Currently, there are only about 3.15 million senior housing units. The industry will need to nearly triple in size to accommodate this population. Unfortunately, the present market only accommodates two paying groups: those who are wholly or partially funded by the government, and those who privately fund their housing and care without government assistance. A large middle market exists between the 41 st and 80th income percentiles consisting of seniors who have too much money to qualify for government assistance but too little to fund the model that is currently available. This research aims to find out how the middle market can be served, what resources would need to be available, and at what price it would be affordable. While creating an affordable product to accommodate a large, aging demographic is a global challenge, this research focuses on finding a solution in the United States. For this study, five focus groups were conducted, each made up of 7-10 participants, with 41 participants in total. Discussion topics included potential amenities and services within the community, dining options, resident perceptions, healthcare, property operations, pricing, staff characteristics, and COVID-19. Once the focus groups’ responses were transcribed, qualitative analysis software Atlas.ti was used to find commonalities in the data. This study presents the most widespread ideas from participants on the aforementioned discussion topics and addresses the importance and feasibility of each.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- Finding the Middle Market: Creating A Senior Living Product That Will Serve Middle-Income Americans
- Creators
- Jennifer Warren (Author)
- Contributors
- NANCY ANN SWANGER (Supervisor) - Washington State University, Hospitality Business Management, School of
- Academic Unit
- Honors Theses (WSU Pullman)
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Identifiers
- 99900720965801842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Essay