Senior households form a third of HDB residents, up from one-quarter in 2018

About 86% of such households want to keep living in current flat, rather than move: Survey

- Ng Keng Gene Correspondent

Close to one in three HDB households is now a senior household, up from one in four in 2018.

Among all senior households - ones where the decision-maker is aged 65 years and older - 85.9 per cent want to continue living in their existing flat rather than moving, for instance, to a smaller flat.

The proportion of those who prefer to stay where they are has remained consistent since 2018.

Even if they require help with daily living, most seniors prefer to remain in their own home with caregiving from family members, domestic helpers, or professional support, according to the Housing Board’s 12th Sample Household Survey, which was published on Nov 27.

The survey takes stock of residents’ sentiments once every five years and was first carried out in 1968.

The latest survey was carried out between October 2023 and April 2024. It involved 7,023 households and, in a first for the survey, occupiers of HDB flats who are single. A total of 1,661 single occupiers were surveyed, giving the HDB an insight to the housing aspirations of this demographic.

HDB said that the respondents comprised households living in HDB sold and rental flats, and that the randomly selected sample was designed to draw inferences from residents living in various HDB towns or estates and flat types.

As at 2023, 3.18 million Singapore residents - including citizens and permanent residents - lived in HDB flats, forming 1.1 million households. Of these, 15.6 per cent were one-person households, up from 12.6 per cent in 2018.

About 95 per cent of HDB households owned their flats.

Overall, the median age of HDB residents grew to 42.8 years in 2023, up from 40.8 in 2018 and 38.6 in 2013.