Ageing in Place in Sweden: Housing, Home Adaptation and Community Support

An older person can receive well-organised home help and still live in a home that gradually works against their independence. A bathroom may become difficult to use safely. Steps can make the entrance inaccessible. A lift may be absent from an older apartment building. Shops, public transport or social activities may be too far away once mobility declines. At that point, the limits of ageing in place are being set as much by housing and neighbourhood design as by the availability of care.

This wider relationship is central to the Sweden Ageing, Long-Term Care & Community Support Knowledge Hub. Sweden has deliberately developed a long-term care model in which most older people continue living within the ordinary housing stock, supported where necessary by home help, municipal healthcare, rehabilitation, home adaptation and increasingly welfare technology. Only a minority of older people live in special housing, and residential care tends to be used later in life when needs have become more extensive.

That model creates an important strategic consequence. Ordinary housing effectively becomes part of Sweden’s long-term care infrastructure. The accessibility of apartments, houses, entrances, bathrooms, neighbourhoods and transport systems influences how much formal care people need, whether preventive interventions succeed and when a move becomes unavoidable.

Ageing in place should therefore not be interpreted simply as keeping somebody in the same property for as long as possible. Its stronger meaning is enabling people to remain within ordinary community life, in housing that is safe, usable and consistent with their preferences as needs change.

Most older people live within the ordinary housing market

The starting point for understanding Sweden’s approach is that most older people do not live in designated care settings.

The majority remain within ordinary housing, whether in owner-occupied homes, tenant-owned apartments, rental accommodation, senior housing or other mainstream forms of tenure. Even among people over 80, only a minority live in special housing or receive formal home help.

This matters because demographic ageing is therefore not mainly a challenge for the elderly-care sector. It is also a challenge for housing policy, planning, transport, property management and local community infrastructure.

A municipality may have strong home-help services but still face increasing care demand if large numbers of older residents live in inaccessible properties. Conversely, accessible housing close to services can allow people with mobility limitations to remain independent for longer.

Housing quality and care demand are therefore connected.

The wider principles of independence and community inclusion for older people are relevant because remaining at home has value only if the person can continue participating in everyday life rather than becoming confined within an unsuitable property.

Sweden has consciously shifted towards remaining at home for longer

The current balance between ordinary housing and residential care reflects both demographic change and deliberate policy.

Older people have generally remained healthier and functionally independent for longer, while Swedish elderly-care policy has increasingly supported kvarboende: remaining within ordinary housing for as long as this is appropriate.

Home help, home healthcare and housing adaptation have all contributed to that direction.

The effect has been significant. People tend to enter special housing later in life and with greater levels of need than in earlier periods. This can be positive where it reflects stronger independence and genuine preference, but it also raises the threshold at which ordinary housing needs to support increasingly complex circumstances.

The central policy question is therefore no longer simply whether an older person can physically remain in the property.

It is whether the home and surrounding community can support:

• safe movement and personal care;
• access to food, healthcare and everyday services;
• social relationships and community participation;
• effective delivery of home-based care;
• changing mobility, sensory and cognitive needs; and
• a realistic level of independence without excessive reliance on relatives.

Ageing in place becomes sustainable when these conditions reinforce one another.

Housing accessibility is preventive care infrastructure

Accessibility is often treated as a building-regulation issue. For an ageing population, it is also a preventive health and social-care issue.

A level entrance, usable bathroom, appropriate door width or accessible lift can determine whether a person continues managing daily life independently. Poor design can create dependency where the individual’s underlying impairment would otherwise be manageable.

Consider a person who can walk safely with a rollator inside their apartment but cannot negotiate the steps between the building entrance and the pavement. Their independence has not disappeared inside the home; the building has effectively trapped it there.

The consequences can accumulate. Reduced activity can worsen mobility. Shopping becomes dependent on someone else. Social contact declines. Healthcare appointments become harder to attend. Eventually more formal support may be required.

Accessibility therefore affects both personal wellbeing and system demand.

The principles within equipment, assistive technology and home adaptations illustrate the wider point: relatively targeted environmental changes can sometimes prevent a much larger loss of independence.

A small physical barrier creates a large care problem

An older woman lives independently in an apartment she has occupied for more than thirty years. She cooks, manages her medicines and handles most personal care without assistance.

After developing arthritis and reduced balance, the bath becomes increasingly difficult to use safely. She begins washing at the sink rather than bathing and eventually asks the municipality for help with personal care.

A narrow interpretation would treat the difficulty as evidence that she needs ongoing home-help assistance.

A wider assessment considers the environment. An occupational therapist identifies that an appropriate bathroom adaptation could allow her to manage safely again.

The adaptation does not eliminate her arthritis, but it changes the practical effect of the condition. What appeared to be a permanent care need becomes partly an environmental problem with an environmental solution.

The scenario demonstrates why housing adaptation belongs within preventive care strategy. Care should compensate for limitations that cannot reasonably be removed; it should not automatically compensate forever for barriers that could be changed.

Sweden’s housing adaptation grant provides an important mechanism

The bostadsanpassningsbidrag, or housing adaptation grant, provides a formal mechanism through which people with disabilities can seek financial support for necessary adaptations to their permanent home.

The current framework is governed by the Act on Housing Adaptation Grants, and municipalities administer individual applications. Boverket, Sweden’s National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, has national oversight responsibilities for the operation of the legislation.

The grant is not an elderly-care entitlement based simply on age. Eligibility relates to disability and the need to adapt the permanent residence so that the person can use it appropriately.

This distinction matters because the policy is broader than elderly care. An older person may benefit because reduced mobility or another impairment makes adaptation necessary, but the grant forms part of a wider disability and independent-living framework.

Adaptations can vary considerably according to individual circumstances. They may involve entrances, bathrooms, internal movement or other fixed features that prevent the home being used safely.

The strategic importance is that the grant creates a bridge between social policy and the built environment. Instead of requiring care services to compensate indefinitely for an inaccessible home, some environmental barriers can be addressed directly.

Adaptation decisions need to be connected to the person’s longer-term housing situation

Not every property can or should be adapted indefinitely.

A substantial adaptation may be technically possible but still offer poor long-term value if the property has multiple other barriers, is geographically isolated or is likely to become unsuitable as needs progress.

This does not mean an older person should be pushed to move simply because adaptation is inconvenient. Home carries emotional, social and financial significance, and remaining in familiar surroundings can be deeply important.

But good advice should consider the whole trajectory.

If an individual is planning to move, housing choice becomes especially important. Moving from one inaccessible property into another and then seeking substantial adaptation may create avoidable difficulties. A more accessible home can itself become a preventive intervention.

The strongest decision-making therefore asks both immediate and longer-term questions:

Can this home be adapted effectively? What other barriers remain? What does the individual want? Would a move provide materially greater independence? Is suitable alternative housing actually available and affordable?

The person-centred principles within positive risk-taking are relevant because housing choices rarely involve one objectively risk-free option. Remaining can preserve familiarity while carrying physical risks; moving can improve accessibility while disrupting social relationships.

The Positive Risk-Taking Planner can help organisations structure comparable decisions around preference, benefit, risk and safeguards. It is not a Swedish housing-adaptation assessment tool, but it can support disciplined thinking where independence and safety need to be considered together.

The existing housing stock is as important as new construction

Sweden’s future ageing challenge cannot be solved solely by constructing new accessible homes.

Many people who will be old in the 2030s and 2040s already live in the properties in which they may spend later life. The accessibility of the existing stock therefore matters enormously.

Older apartment buildings may lack lifts or have entrances that were not designed around reduced mobility. Detached houses can include stairs, difficult bathrooms and substantial maintenance responsibilities. Rural properties may be physically spacious but distant from services.

New construction standards can improve future accessibility, but transformation of the existing housing stock is slower.

This creates a strategic need for municipalities to understand not simply how many older residents they have but how and where those people live.

Boverket’s current housing-market analysis emphasises this planning requirement: municipalities need a good understanding of their housing stock and the living circumstances of older residents if they are to anticipate future demand effectively.

That is fundamentally a data problem as well as a housing problem.

Municipal housing planning and elderly-care planning need to connect

Municipal organisations can easily separate housing strategy from elderly-care strategy because they sit within different administrative and professional domains.

Demographic ageing makes that separation increasingly difficult to sustain.

A municipality planning future home-help capacity without understanding housing accessibility may underestimate demand. A housing strategy that forecasts population ageing but does not consider care needs may produce homes that technically increase supply without improving older people’s options.

The stronger approach links population forecasts, housing-stock information, care demand and community infrastructure.

Questions include where the population aged 80 and over is increasing, which neighbourhoods contain inaccessible housing, where transport is weak and whether suitable smaller or age-friendly homes exist for people who want to move voluntarily.

The Digital Twin Scenario Modeller can help organisations explore comparable relationships between population demand, workforce capacity and service stability. It is not calibrated to Swedish housing-market planning, but scenario modelling is useful where decisions in one part of the system change pressures elsewhere.

A municipality discovers that future home-help demand is partly a housing problem

A municipality forecasts substantial growth in the number of residents aged over 80 and initially responds by modelling the additional home-help workforce it may require.

Planners then combine demographic information with housing data. A large proportion of future older residents live in detached homes built decades earlier. Many properties contain internal stairs and are located some distance from shops and public transport.

The municipality realises that simply scaling home help will not address the full challenge.

Its response broadens. Housing planning explores more accessible alternatives in central locations. The municipal housing company considers adaptation and refurbishment opportunities. Information is developed for residents considering a move before health deterioration makes relocation urgent.

Care planners continue forecasting workforce need, but they now model different housing scenarios alongside it.

The intervention is not about directing older people out of their homes. It is about creating credible choices before unsuitable housing turns voluntary preference into crisis-driven relocation.

This is one of the most important operational implications of ageing in place: care-system sustainability can sometimes be improved through housing policy rather than through additional care alone.

Senior housing creates an option between ordinary housing and care accommodation

Sweden’s housing market includes senior housing aimed at people above a specified age. These are ordinary homes rather than needs-assessed care settings.

The model varies significantly. Some developments differ little from mainstream housing beyond age criteria, while others offer greater accessibility, communal space, opportunities for social activity or additional services.

Residents remain responsible for arranging care separately. If they need home help or home healthcare, they access those services according to the same municipal and healthcare arrangements that apply within other ordinary housing.

The potential value of senior housing lies in anticipatory choice.

Someone may decide while still independent to move from a large detached house to a smaller accessible apartment near services. That move can make future support easier without turning the person into a recipient of residential care.

Current municipal housing-market assessments indicate that senior housing exists across much of Sweden but that many municipalities believe supply remains insufficient.

This suggests an important strategic gap. A person may be willing to move but unable to find a property that combines accessibility, location, tenure and affordability.

Trygghetsbostäder add security and community without becoming residential care

Trygghetsbostäder, often described as security or assisted senior housing, occupy another space between mainstream housing and special housing.

The term covers different local models, but common features can include accessible design, communal space, opportunities for social interaction and some form of staff presence or facilitation.

Most such housing does not require an individual social-services decision. Residents rent or purchase their home and seek formal home help or healthcare separately if needed.

The attraction is understandable.

An older person may not require round-the-clock care but may feel isolated or unsafe in their existing property. Moving to a more accessible development with neighbours, communal spaces and greater everyday security can extend independent living.

There is also a separate possibility within Swedish social-services legislation for municipalities to establish individually needs-assessed security housing for older people who need support, easily accessible services and help addressing involuntary isolation without requiring the intensity of traditional special housing. This remains a voluntary municipal option and is not universally available.

The existence of several housing categories reinforces an important point: the transition between complete independence and high-dependency residential care does not need to occur in one step.

Housing choice is constrained by supply and affordability

Policy discussions can sometimes imply that older people living in unsuitable housing simply need better information about moving.

That assumes an appropriate alternative exists.

In many municipalities, the supply of accessible senior housing and other suitable homes remains limited. Boverket’s 2026 housing-market assessment shows that a substantial proportion of municipalities with senior housing report needing more of it, while many municipalities also report shortages of trygghetsbostäder and special housing.

Affordability can create another barrier.

An older homeowner may live in a property with low ongoing housing costs but face significantly higher monthly costs if moving to a newly built accessible apartment. Rental availability varies geographically. Someone with limited income may therefore remain in an unsuitable property because the alternatives are financially unrealistic.

Housing inequality can consequently become care inequality.

People with greater resources can purchase adaptations, move to accessible developments or relocate nearer family and services. Others may depend more heavily on public adaptation, home help or relatives because their housing choices are narrower.

This connects with health inequalities, prevention and early intervention. A preventive housing strategy needs to ask not only whether suitable homes exist but who can realistically access them.

Neighbourhood accessibility determines whether the home remains connected to society

A perfectly adapted apartment can still provide poor ageing-in-place outcomes if the surrounding environment is inaccessible.

Older people need routes into ordinary community life.

Footpaths, seating, lighting, snow clearance, public transport, shops, pharmacies, healthcare and community facilities can all influence independence. The effect becomes more pronounced as walking distance and stamina reduce.

This means neighbourhood planning has direct care consequences.

An older person who can walk 300 metres safely but whose nearest food shop is two kilometres away may become dependent on delivery or assistance. Another person may stop attending community activities because the bus stop cannot be reached safely in winter.

These are not necessarily problems that additional personal care can solve.

Municipal planning therefore needs to recognise ageing as a whole-community issue rather than one restricted to elderly-care departments.

The wider principles within community benefit and local partnerships are relevant because voluntary organisations, housing companies, transport providers and local businesses can all influence whether neighbourhoods remain usable for older residents.

Rural ageing creates a different housing challenge

Sweden’s geography makes ageing in place particularly complex in sparsely populated municipalities.

Older residents may live in properties they strongly value and within communities where relationships are long established. The home itself may offer sufficient space and be capable of adaptation.

Distance can nevertheless become the limiting factor.

Home-help workers may travel substantial distances between visits. Healthcare access may require longer journeys. Shops and community facilities may be limited. Public transport can be infrequent.

A reduction in local population can further weaken the infrastructure that enables people to remain independent.

Rural ageing therefore cannot be solved simply by applying an urban home-support model across greater distances.

Technology may help with some communication or monitoring, but it cannot deliver a meal, clear snow, provide physical personal care or replace every social interaction.

The stronger opportunity lies in coordinated local planning: workforce deployment, transport, housing, community services and digital infrastructure need to be considered together.

Remaining in a rural home is possible until community infrastructure changes

An older couple live in a rural village and have no wish to move. Their house has been adapted successfully, one partner receives limited home help and both remain active locally.

Over several years, however, the surrounding infrastructure changes. The local shop closes, bus services reduce and one partner stops driving.

The care package itself has not changed, but everyday independence has.

The municipality and wider community partners need to understand that additional personal care will not necessarily solve the problem. Transport, access to food, community connection and digital support become equally important.

If the couple eventually decide to move, the decision should ideally result from informed choice rather than an acute event that leaves no alternatives.

The scenario shows why ageing in place is relational. A house can remain physically suitable while the surrounding environment gradually becomes less sustainable.

Community support can delay the point at which care becomes necessary

Formal elderly care is only one component of successful ageing at home.

Social activity, exercise, community organisations, voluntary support, libraries, meeting places and accessible public services can all contribute to independence.

This should not be interpreted as transferring statutory responsibilities to communities or expecting volunteers to replace paid care.

The value lies elsewhere.

Community infrastructure can prevent loneliness, maintain physical activity, create informal support networks and provide places where emerging problems become visible earlier.

A person who attends a regular activity may remain more socially connected and physically active than someone isolated at home. Community contacts may encourage an older person to seek professional help when needs change.

This aligns with the preventive direction of Sweden’s new Social Services Act and with wider prevention and early intervention principles.

Strong communities do not eliminate formal care demand. They can make independence richer and help prevent care from becoming the individual’s only connection to the outside world.

Home adaptation and rehabilitation work best when connected

A physical adaptation changes the environment, while rehabilitation can change what the person is able to do within that environment.

Treating the two separately can miss opportunities.

An older person recovering from a fall may require temporary equipment, rehabilitation and changes to the home. If each intervention is organised without reference to the others, support can become fragmented.

Occupational therapists and other rehabilitation professionals therefore have an important role in identifying how function and environment interact.

The objective is not simply to make the property safer in an abstract sense. It is to enable specific activities that matter to the individual: bathing independently, preparing food, entering the building or reaching an outdoor area.

This reflects the broader principles of outcomes-focused support. The value of an adaptation is demonstrated through what the person can do, not only through the physical work completed.

Welfare technology can extend the usable life of a home

Technology increasingly forms another layer within ageing-in-place strategy.

Safety alarms, sensors, digital supervision, remote communication and other welfare technologies may help older people remain at home with greater confidence or reduce the need for some routine physical interventions.

Technology is most effective when it addresses a defined problem.

A sensor may reduce risk for someone prone to falls. Digital night supervision may allow another person greater privacy. A communication tool may help relatives remain involved across distance.

The weaker approach is to introduce technology simply because it appears modern or because workforce pressure creates a search for substitutes.

Technology changes the care model and therefore needs governance. Who receives an alert? What response time is expected? What happens during a system failure? Does the person understand what data are being collected? Is an alternative available?

The Digital Transformation Readiness Assessment can help organisations examine whether strategy, workforce, governance and resilience are sufficiently developed to support this type of change. It is not a Swedish statutory assessment, but the underlying readiness questions remain relevant.

Digital access can support independence while creating another form of exclusion

Sweden’s digitally developed public environment offers significant advantages for many older people. Information, banking, healthcare contact, shopping and communication can all be managed from home.

These capabilities can materially extend independent living.

But digital services can also become another environmental barrier where people lack skills, devices, connectivity or confidence.

An older person who can no longer reach a physical service easily may become more dependent at exactly the point when the service expects them to interact digitally.

The principles within digital inclusion therefore belong within ageing-in-place strategy.

Accessible systems require alternatives. Digital support should widen routes into community life rather than become the only route available.

Families often carry the invisible infrastructure of ageing at home

Sweden’s universal welfare model is intended to reduce dependence on family care, but relatives still contribute substantially to many older people’s ability to remain at home.

They may shop, transport the person, manage practical issues, coordinate appointments, maintain the property and provide companionship.

Housing can intensify this hidden workload.

An adult child may spend hours travelling to maintain a parent’s rural house. A spouse may physically assist with stairs or bathing because the home has not yet been adapted. A relative may become responsible for complex technology introduced to support independence.

Ageing-in-place policy should therefore not assume that remaining at home is cost-free simply because formal service use is limited.

The themes within family partnership and carer support are directly relevant.

A sustainable arrangement needs visibility of what relatives are actually doing and whether they want and are able to continue.

An apparently independent household depends on one exhausted relative

An older man receives only a small amount of formal home help, suggesting that he remains highly independent.

During a review, however, the municipality discovers that his daughter visits almost daily. She shops, cleans parts of the house that he cannot reach, deals with correspondence, drives him to healthcare and assists with tasks involving stairs.

The care record substantially understates the support required to sustain the current housing arrangement.

The response is not automatically to replace every family task with formal care. The municipality discusses what the daughter wants to continue doing and what is becoming unsustainable.

Home adaptation reduces some physical barriers. Alternative transport is explored, and the formal support plan is adjusted.

The man remains at home, but the arrangement becomes less dependent on one person’s unpaid capacity.

This distinction matters internationally. Ageing-in-place statistics can appear successful while significant care has simply shifted outside formal systems.

Moving earlier can sometimes preserve more independence than moving later

Public discussion about ageing often treats moving as evidence that ageing in place has failed.

That can discourage consideration of relocation until circumstances become urgent.

For some older people, a voluntary move while they remain relatively independent can expand future options. A smaller accessible home near shops and transport may support independence for longer than remaining in a larger but increasingly unsuitable property.

The timing matters.

Moving after a major hospital admission or sudden deterioration can feel imposed and disorientating. Moving several years earlier can allow the person to choose location, tenure and community while they have the energy to establish new routines.

This is not an argument for encouraging all older homeowners to move.

Many people live successfully in long-standing homes throughout later life. The stronger policy objective is to make moving a credible option rather than a crisis response.

That requires appropriate housing supply, transparent information and affordability.

Housing data need to become part of care-system intelligence

Municipalities already collect substantial information about elderly-care demand, housing markets and population change.

The opportunity lies in bringing these sources together.

A sophisticated ageing-in-place evidence framework could examine:

• where older populations are growing;
• where inaccessible housing is concentrated;
• housing adaptation demand and waiting patterns;
• availability of senior and security housing;
• home-help intensity by neighbourhood;
• transport and service accessibility; and
• movement into special housing and the circumstances preceding it.

Such data should not be used to predict individual behaviour simplistically. Its value lies in identifying structural patterns.

If residents from one type of housing repeatedly require more intensive home help, the municipality may need to investigate why. If adaptation applications are significantly lower in some communities, accessibility to the grant itself may require examination.

The broader principles of data quality and performance measurement apply directly.

The Quality Dashboard Builder can help organisations think about combining evidence streams into a more useful governance view. It does not provide Swedish municipal benchmarks, but the discipline of connecting demand, quality and outcomes can help expose relationships that isolated datasets conceal.

Municipal governance needs to cross organisational boundaries

Ageing in place is difficult to govern because no single municipal department controls all of the factors involved.

Elderly-care leaders may control home-help provision but not housing construction. Planning departments shape the built environment but do not manage care. Municipal housing companies influence parts of the housing stock. Transport and community services affect accessibility.

A fragmented governance structure can therefore produce individually rational decisions that collectively undermine ageing-in-place strategy.

For example, a municipality might reduce investment in local community facilities while simultaneously increasing spending on interventions intended to reduce loneliness. Housing developments may be built in locations poorly connected to healthcare or public transport. Care workforce planning may ignore the effect of dispersed settlement patterns.

The stronger governance model creates shared visibility of outcomes without pretending that every function should be merged organisationally.

The Governance Maturity Assessment can help organisations consider comparable questions about accountability, decision-making and assurance. It is not designed around Swedish municipal government, but the core principle is relevant: strategic outcomes that cross organisational boundaries need explicit ownership.

Climate and seasonal resilience are part of housing sustainability

Ageing in place also needs to account for environmental conditions.

Sweden’s climate can create practical risks for older people, particularly during winter. Snow and ice can restrict mobility, increase fall risk and disrupt transport or home-help travel.

Periods of extreme heat can also affect older people, especially those with chronic conditions or homes poorly adapted to high temperatures.

Housing resilience therefore includes temperature management, reliable energy, safe access and contingency arrangements during severe weather.

The relevance varies geographically, but the general lesson is that a home considered suitable under ordinary conditions also needs to remain viable during foreseeable disruption.

Ageing in place needs measures of quality, not simply duration

A system can report that people remain in ordinary housing until advanced age and interpret this automatically as success.

That would be incomplete.

The meaningful question is what life at home looks like.

Is the person safe? Can they leave the property? Are they socially connected? Do they have meaningful control over daily life? Is family support sustainable? Does formal care arrive reliably? Can the home accommodate changing needs?

Someone remaining in an inaccessible apartment while rarely leaving it may technically be ageing in place but experiencing substantial isolation.

Outcome measures should therefore reflect quality of life alongside location.

This is where person-reported experience, community participation and independence measures become important complements to traditional service data.

International learning lies in treating housing as part of long-term care policy

Sweden’s housing market, municipal structure and welfare state are specific to its institutional context. Other countries cannot simply reproduce Swedish arrangements for home-help entitlement or housing adaptation.

The transferable principles are nevertheless significant.

First, ageing-in-place policy cannot be delivered by care services alone. Ordinary housing and neighbourhood infrastructure determine how feasible independent living remains.

Second, adaptation can be preventive. Changing an environment may reduce dependency more effectively than increasing assistance around an unchanged barrier.

Third, intermediate housing choices matter. A system with only ordinary family housing and high-dependency residential care leaves too large a gap between them.

Fourth, moving should not automatically be treated as policy failure. A planned move to suitable housing can preserve independence.

Finally, formal care statistics rarely show the full infrastructure sustaining life at home. Family support, transport, digital access and community networks all contribute.

The model itself is not directly transferable, but the underlying lesson is: housing policy and long-term care policy need to be designed with one another in view.

Conclusion

Sweden’s commitment to ageing in place has helped make ordinary housing the principal setting for later life. Home help, municipal healthcare and rehabilitation are essential to that model, but they cannot compensate indefinitely for unsuitable homes, inaccessible neighbourhoods or limited housing choice. The physical and social environment therefore forms part of the country’s long-term care infrastructure.

Home adaptation provides one important mechanism for preserving independence where disability creates practical barriers. Senior housing and trygghetsbostäder can offer alternative forms of ordinary housing before the intensity of special housing is required. Community services, transport and digital access extend the effective boundaries of the home by determining whether people remain connected to society.

The strategic challenge for municipalities is to bring these elements together. Demographic forecasting needs to connect with housing-stock intelligence. Care planning needs to recognise environmental barriers. Housing development needs to anticipate ageing, while support for remaining at home needs to account for family capacity, inequality and geographic variation.

Ageing in place should therefore be judged neither by the age at which someone moves nor by the number of people who avoid residential care. Its stronger measure is whether older people retain meaningful control over where and how they live as circumstances change. Sweden’s future success will depend on creating enough accessible homes, adaptable environments and community infrastructure for remaining at home to stay a genuine choice rather than becoming an expectation that people and families are left to sustain alone.