Article review of “Understanding trajectories into private rental housing in older age”, focusing on the topic of research approaches: for Housing Studies students

Article review of “Understanding trajectories into private rental housing in older age”, focusing on the topic of research approaches: for Housing Studies students

 

How to present this article in Harvard reference format?

Petersen, M. & Tilse, C., 2026. Understanding trajectories into private rental housing in older age: a qualitative life course study. Housing Studies, 41(10), pp.2404-2425. doi:10.1080/02673037.2026.2617568 [accessed 22 Jan 2026].

 

What are the key research issues the article wants to address?

The key research issues the article addresses are:

1.    Understanding the trajectories that lead to private rental housing in older age, particularly how individual life events, social conditions, and policy contexts across the life course interact to contribute to older people renting privately rather than owning a home.

2.    Investigating the cumulative disadvantage and critical life events—such as marital separation, caregiving responsibilities, health challenges, violence, and financial losses—that impact housing security and result in private tenancy in later life.

3.    Exploring how social norms and housing policies, which traditionally assume home ownership as the main pathway to secure and affordable housing in retirement, may fail to protect low-income older people who rent privately and face housing stress.

4.    Identifying the implications of gender, single parenthood, and experiences of economic abuse on housing vulnerability in older age.

5.    Highlighting the need for early interventions across multiple policy domains and life stages to ameliorate long-term housing precarity outcomes for older private renters.

These issues reflect the limited understanding of how life course factors and social-policy environments jointly shape precarious private rental housing in older age, which the study seeks to address using a qualitative life course approach.

 

What research methods have been used in this study?

The study employed qualitative life history methods within a life course perspective. Key methodological components include:

1.    Life History Interviews: Conducted in-depth, in-person interviews with 76 older private renters (68 interviews total, including some couples). Interviews lasted approximately 90 minutes each. Participants recounted their life transitions, critical events, housing histories, and life circumstances over their lifespan.

2.    Timeline Construction: Each interview involved jointly constructing a hand-drawn timeline with participants to visually map key life events, transitions, and housing changes. This aided recall and helped contextualize housing trajectories within broader life experiences.

3.    Sampling: Purposive sampling targeted adults aged over 55 years, on pension or benefit income with limited assets, and who were current or past private renters. Participants were recruited from urban and regional/rural areas in one Australian state, excluding those with dementia or severe health issues that impair participation.

4.    Data Analysis: Analysis involved two phases:

• Phase 1: Creating individual life course charts synthesizing interview data on age, transitions, critical events, housing, income, social and policy conditions.
• Phase 2: Grouping life histories into four key trajectories based on patterns of cumulative advantage/disadvantage and critical events.

The Framework Method was used inductively to identify themes related to transitions, events, policies, social conditions, and housing outcomes. NVivo software supported further coding.

5.    Rigour: Ensured through prolonged engagement, peer debriefing, negative case analysis, independent coding by multiple researchers, and team discussions to refine trajectory categories.

This approach allowed deep exploration of how personal, social, and policy factors across the life course shape housing outcomes in older age.

 

Describe two main theories employed in this study.

The study primarily employs the following two theoretical frameworks:

1.    Life Course Perspective: This is the central conceptual framework guiding the study. The life course perspective emphasizes understanding individuals' housing trajectories in the context of their broader life experiences, events, and transitions over time. It integrates key concepts such as:

• Turning points and life transitions: Significant events that change life trajectories.
• Cumulative advantage and disadvantage: How advantages or disadvantages accumulate throughout life to impact later outcomes.
• Linked lives: Interconnectedness of individuals’ lives with family and social networks.
• Timing and sequencing of events: How the timing of critical events influences their impact.

This perspective also situates individual experiences within wider social and policy contexts, highlighting how structural conditions amplify or mitigate inequalities. The study uses this framework to analyze how critical life events, combined with social and policy contexts, culminate in housing precarity in older age.

2.    Concept of Cumulative Disadvantage: Embedded within the life course perspective, cumulative disadvantage theory explains how disadvantages (e.g., poverty, interrupted work history, experiences of violence) accumulate over time, leading to increasingly precarious outcomes in later life. The study identifies how repeated critical life events, such as marital dissolution, health crises, and economic abuse, compound over the lifespan to restrict housing options and limit asset accumulation, resulting in private rental tenancy in older age.

These theories together provide a framework to understand not only the individual trajectories but also the interaction between personal agency, social relationships, critical events, and policy environments shaping housing insecurity among older private renters.

 

What research approaches (i.e. qualitative method, quantitative method and mixed research method) have been used in this study?

This study employs a qualitative research approach, specifically using life history interviews to explore older private renters' trajectories into private rental housing in later life. Key features of the qualitative approach in this study include:

• Conducting in-depth, single-session life history interviews of approximately 90 minutes with 76 participants (including some joint interviews with couples).
• Using timeline charts co-constructed with participants during interviews to map critical life events, transitions, and housing histories.
• Collecting rich qualitative data through audio recordings, detailed notes, and transcripts.
• Applying an inductive thematic analysis (framework method) to identify critical events, transitions, social and policy conditions, and housing outcomes.
• Grouping individual life course charts into four main trajectories based on commonality and differences in experiences.
• Ensuring rigour through prolonged engagement, peer debriefing, negative case analysis, and team-based coding discussions.

There is no indication of quantitative or mixed methods being used in this study; the focus is on qualitative, narrative data to capture complex life course dynamics and contextual factors influencing housing outcomes in older age.

 

What (reasoning) research approaches have been used in this study (i.e. inductive, deduct and abductive approaches)?

The research approach used in this study is primarily inductive reasoning. This is evidenced by the following points:

• The analysis was conducted inductively to identify transitions, events, policies, social conditions, and their impact on housing based on the participants' life history interviews without imposing preconceived categories or hypotheses.
• The framework method was used to develop themes and trajectories from the data itself, allowing patterns and key trajectories to emerge from participants' narratives.
• The researchers constructed individual life course charts and then grouped them according to commonalities and differences that emerged from the data, reflecting an inductive, data-driven approach.

The study does not describe testing pre-existing theories or hypotheses (which would indicate a deductive approach), nor does it explicitly adopt abductive reasoning (iterative interplay between observation and theory generation) although some elements of theory integration occur in the conceptual framework section. Overall, inductive reasoning is the dominant approach in developing understanding from qualitative data in this life course study.

 

Describe 3 main claims of the article in terms of Toulmin's model of argument.

Using Toulmin's model of argument—which consists of Claim, Data (Evidence), and Warrant (Reasoning)—the three main claims of the article can be described as follows:

1.    Claim 1: Older people who rent privately often experience cumulative disadvantage across their life course that leads to housing precarity in later life.

• Data: Analysis of 76 life history interviews identified four trajectories into private rental housing characterized by various forms of cumulative disadvantage, critical life events, and disrupted asset accumulation.
• Warrant: The life course perspective explains that housing outcomes in later life are embedded in a person’s earlier life experiences, transitions, and social and policy conditions, which accumulate advantage or disadvantage over time.

2.    Claim 2: Critical life events such as marital separation, health crises, and financial losses significantly disrupt housing stability and asset accumulation, often resulting in older people becoming private renters.

• Data: Participants reported key transitions and turning points including divorce, violence, caregiving roles, natural disasters, and financial fraud that either singly or cumulatively led to loss of housing and financial security.
• Warrant: These events act as turning points that interrupt trajectories of housing security by depleting resources and access to affordable housing options, as supported by qualitative data and life course theory.

3.    Claim 3: Social and housing policies have failed to adequately protect or support low-income older people who do not own homes, and early interventions across multiple domains are needed to mitigate long-term housing disadvantages.

• Data: The study highlights policy limitations such as lack of affordable housing supply, inadequate social housing eligibility, and insufficient support for women and vulnerable groups, despite social reforms. Participants’ narratives reveal consequential housing precarity linked to these gaps.
• Warrant: Effective policy interventions must consider the cumulative and interacting social and economic disadvantages across the life course rather than isolated solutions in older age, implying that reforms targeting earlier stages of life and housing systems are essential.

These claims collectively argue that later-life private rental housing insecurity is the product of a complex interplay of personal life histories and structural factors, warranting a holistic and life course-informed policy response.

 

Describe two main research limitations of this study.

Two main research limitations of the study as described are:

1.    Sample Representativeness: The study’s sample overrepresents women and does not include participants identifying as Indigenous, LGBTQ+, or refugees. This limits the generalizability of findings across diverse populations of older private renters and overlooks how intersectional identities might uniquely shape housing trajectories and experiences of precarity.

2.    Exclusion of Participants with Cognitive or Severe Health Issues: People with dementia or debilitating health conditions were excluded from the sample due to the demands of the life history interview method. This omission means the study may not fully capture the experiences and challenges of the most vulnerable older renters who have impaired capacity to participate in lengthy qualitative interviews, possibly biasing results toward those with relatively better health.