The increasing value of property could allow older people to help finance their retirement by trading down or releasing equity in their homes, an ESRI report suggests.
However, the study warns that using housing wealth in this way could have "complex effects" on family relationships.
It says housing-related bequests or gifts could have an important bearing on the sense of obligation and entitlement that arises between generations within families.
The findings are contained in A Social Portrait Of Older People in Ireland, an ESRI report commissioned by the Government's Office for Social Inclusion. It is designed to provide an accurate picture of the needs of older people in modern society.
Most older people own their home and very few older owner-occupiers have any mortgage left to pay, the report shows.
This means many older people have a substantial asset in the form of debt-free property, particularly given the surge in house prices in recent years.
However, older people have lower incomes and are more likely to be at risk of poverty than the rest of the population.
Despite significant progress in lifting older people out of poverty, recent figures show that more than one quarter of those aged 65 or more fell below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold which is set at 60 per cent of the median income.
This is about 1½ times the rate for the total population and working age population.
However, a different measure of poverty - consistent poverty - shows that poverty rates among older people in 2005 fell to 3.7 per cent, compared to 7 per cent generally. This is due largely to a sustained increase in the value of the pension, which reached €200 in the most recent Budget.
The report also notes that the proportion of older people in Ireland is one of the lowest in the EU.
While older people account for 11 per cent of the population at present, population projections suggest this could increase to 23 per cent by 2036 or 29 per cent by 2050. Minister for Social Affairs Séamus Brennan, who launched the report yesterday, said this shift in population profile will have serious implications for pensions and other services that older people use or rely heavily on.
In the area of pensions, for example, Mr Brennan said this cost would spiral from its current rate of 4.3 per cent of gross national product to almost 14 per cent.
Mr Brennan said almost half the workforce of two million did not have personal pensions. "In stark terms it means that 900,000, some 500,000 of whom are women, are gradually heading towards retirements in which their main source of income will be the State pension," he said.
