Wondering About Aging Communities

A Reply to October's "Aging in Place" Column

George Penfold

I recently moved from Comox on Vancouver Island to Castlegar in the West Kootenay, and was struck by the lower rate of in-migration of retirees compared to Vancouver Island. There is interest here in attracting retirees and other “amenity migrants,” and clearly some level of demand, but we are just starting that process here compared to the Island. That interest, and the October 2008 column on Aging in Place on the CIT Information Resource site, got me wondering about how different Island and Interior communities really are, and how an “older” population will effect Kootenay communities.

I looked at two communities. My new "home town" of Castlegar has a reputation as a "mill town." Locally we have a saw mill and a pulp mill, and the Teck Cominco smelter in Trail is within commuting distance. Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, on the other hand, has a reputation as a retirement community with the “oldest” population in BC. I checked the Statistics Canada community profiles based on 2006 census data to see what differences I could find.

The communities are relatively similar in size, but growth rates are quite different, as is median age:

* Between 2001 and 2006 Qualicum Beach grew from 6,920 to 8,520 (23.1%). Castlegar grew as well, but at a significantly lower rate from 7,002 to 7,260 (3.7%);

* Median age (rounded to nearest full year) in Qualicum Beach is 61 years, and 41% of the population is over 65. In comparison, Castlegar has a median age of 44 years, and 19.4% are over 65.

Those are pretty predictable differences, although the scale of difference in the age of the population and rate of growth surprised me. What do those differences mean in terms of the social and economic characteristics of the community? Some community characteristics are surprisingly similar:

* In Qualicum Beach, almost half (48.8%) of the population 25-64 has university or college level certificate or degree (not including trades) compared to Castlegar at 44.2%. Not a very big difference.

* Median household incomes are also similar - $25,765 for single person households and $40,943 for all others in Qualicum Beach compared to $25,000 and $44,107 in Castlegar. It’s easy to forget that many retirees still have significant incomes, and that retiree incomes are "basic" incomes in that they bring in dollars from outside the region, just like export-based manufacturing jobs.

* Neither community has ethnic diversity, with only 3.4% visible minority population in Qualicum Beach and 2.4% in Castlegar (compared to 24.8% provincially).

* Like most rural communities in BC, both have had low immigration numbers (115 and 50 respectively).Neither community plays a significant role in the bigger provincial immigration pattern where approximately 75% of the net population growth in BC in 2007 was immigration.

There are, however, some significant differences:

* Qualicum Beach has high population mobility – 46% of the population did not live at the current address in 2001, and 35% came from outside the region, compared to 16% and 8% respectively in Castlegar. Given the 23% growth in Qualicum Beach, high mobility is not surprising, but I wonder how that high “changeover” rate relates to the touted advantages of additional "social capacity" and volunteerism in retirement communities? One thing it does mean is more employment in finance and real estate, 305 in Qualicum compared to 200 in Castlegar!

* Only 33% of the total population is in the labour force in Qualicum, compared to 51% in Castlegar. The most obvious employment difference is that there are 420 employed in manufacturing and construction in Qualicum Beach, compared to 756 in Castlegar. Beyond that, it’s hard to compare as there is no large regional centre similar to Nanaimo in the West Kootenay.

* Lack of difference in housing diversity was the biggest surprise. In Qualicum Beach, 80% of dwellings are single detached, compared to 74% in Castlegar.

* In Castlegar, 62% of age 65+ households live in single detached homes, compared to 79% in Qualicum. Apparently housing retirees isn’t an easy pathway to increased housing choice and diversity!

* Although there is a huge difference in average dwelling value ($399,682 in Qualicum Beach, compared to $197,863 in Castlegar), there are lower rates of rental (16% and 22% respectively), lower median monthly payments for owned dwellings ($399 per month compared to $751 per month), and slightly lower rates of households paying more than 30% of household income on shelter (18.4% compared to 20.4%). There must be much higher equity ratios on housing in Qualicum Beach compared to Castlegar, perhaps a benefit of moving from higher value real estate markets, or accumulated intergenerational wealth. On the other hand, rental households in both communities share significant challenges in terms of affordablility with 39.5% and 40.1% of rental households respectively spending more than 30% of household income on rental payments.

* In spite of having a much older population, I was surprised to find that Qualicum Beach has a lower proportion of single person households (26%), compared to Castlegar (29%). When I dug a little deeper I found that 68% of those households are seniors aged 65+ in Qualicum Beach, compared to Castlegar (48%). There are 510 senior aged 75+ single person households in Qualicum Beach compared to 250 in Castlegar. I wonder what that means, especially as those numbers increase over time, in terms of the need for home support services?

Although there are some similarities between the communities, the differences are significant. My sense is that seniors in any significant number are not an “add on” to an existing community, but represent a significantly different community in social and economic makeup and with a very different personality. The data doesn’t make those differences very clear or at least clear enough to inform planning and development decisions.

Given that our communities are getting "greyer," we need to be asking some questions. For example:

* How is this generation of seniors actually using community services and facilities compared to the general population?

* What proportion of seniors use recreation facilitates and transit? On an anecdotal basis, my observation is that I'm seeing more older folks at the recreation centre. On the other hand, I'm also seeing many more in parking lots than I do in my public transit travels around the City.

* If these anecdotal observations are valid, what should we be doing with regard to local land use, development, and community services?


About the author:
GEORGE PENFOLD is Regional Innovation Chair in Rural Economic Development at Selkirk College in Castlegar, BC (www.selkirk.ca), and Adjunct Professor at the School of Business and Economics at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC (www.tru.ca).

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