Meanings of home for older home owners

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Abstract
The meaning of home has been the subject of much recent debate. The paper explores this debate and uses empirical data from New Zealand to demonstrate that the meaning of home reflects specific sets of historical and social circumstances and is multi‐dimensional. Key features include home as a cultural value, the investment potential of home and the impacts of gender on the meanings attached to home and home life. The paper explores the meanings of home amongst a group of older New Zealanders interviewed towards the end of 1993 and in early 1994, a time of considerable upheaval within state policy with respect to the elderly. For this group ‘home’ was synonymous with home ownership and reflected deeply held concerns with respect to security, family and continuity. These same concerns it is argued gave rise to the specific pattern of housing tenure, predominantly owner occupation, that developed within New Zealand. Out of these concerns for security and family continuity comes a focus upon bequeathing amongst the older home owners as they consider the passing on of their accumulated assets and other markers of family to the next generation. Changing patterns of family form and the growth of a more individualistic culture, as a result of social and economic restructuring, are expected to profoundly modify the meanings of home held by New Zealanders and lead to increasingly marked intergenerational differences in both the meanings attached to ‘home’ and the importance of inheritance.

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