Nature of the living arrangements of the older persons determines the wellbeing of and the caring of aged people. There are also numerous social, economic and familial implications for the elderly living arrangements. Using 2% microdata from 2011 national census, this paper aims to investigate living arrangements of the elders in Iran. According to the 2011 census, the population aged 60+ years old in Iran was more than 6.1 million, representing about 8.3% of the total population.

Findings show that 14.5% of aged people living alone, 25.6% living with their spouses, 41.5% living with spouse and children, 8.0% living with children only, and the living arrangements of remaining 8.0%, composite of relatives besides spouse, children, or spouse and children.

The finding revealed that the number of women in old ages is far more than men. It can be found that in those living arrangements forms where spouse is not present, the proportion of older women is higher than that of men. As the age increase the probability of living alone rapidly increase, especially among women (for 80+ years old category, rose to 28.0% for both sexes; and to 43.6% for women). Findings also show that the proportion of living alone among literate is half of illiterate and in contrast, other forms of co-residence is more prevalent among literate elders than illiterate.

Our results indicate that with the raising age of the elders, there are a trend towards increase in the percent of living alone, and becoming feminine. With the further increase in the ageing of Iranian population which is expected in the future, this age patterns can create more adverse conditions for old age people especially for women. Therefore, given the demographic and social changes ahead, there is need for further demographic and social researches and designing appropriate policy.