The Impact of AIDS on Intergenerational Relationships in Africa

Abstract

This paper describes die impact of AIDS on intergenerational relationships in Africa (especially Sub-Saharan Africa). The AIDS infection in Sub-Saharan Africa has expanded astronomically with up to 18.5 million living with the disease. Young adults between the ages of 14 and 49 are most likely to be infected. In the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, three levels of HIV/AIDS infection among adults can be identified-hardest hit, high, and moderate. This ranges from 3.6% for moderate level to 35.8% for the hardest hit. The situation has changed the youth population profile and has numerous quality of life implications for young people, older adults, and a multi-dimensional impact on community life.

With the adverse socioeconomic and psychological effect of AIDS, interactions between members of the different generations are made difficult-relationships are becoming more of a burden than a mutual source of satisfaction. Children and young adults are losing their parents and mentors, and sometimes have to take care of their infected and dying parents at a very early stage in life. The older population is now losing its social and economic support, which hitherto, they have drawn from their adult children, and at the same time, they are assuming a new caregiving role to either their infected and affected children or grandchildren, or both.

Hope exists if the trend is checked by AIDS prevention efforts with examples drawn from countries like Uganda, Senegal, and Nigeria. But since there are some victims already, efforts should be made to help them cope with the stress and adverse effects of the disease. Governmental policies should also aim at assisting victims and volunteers financially. As part of the strategy, intergenerational relationships at family, organizational and community levels should be strengthened. Reinforcing the value of being one's “brother's keeper” both as individuals and groups/organizations is crucial at this time of crisis.     

Intergenerational Practices and Possibilities Related to the HIV/AIDS Pandemic in Botswana and Nigeria

Abstract

The future of Botswana and Nigeria hangs precariously on the balance of life and death. In recent years, the latter seems to be winning as both countries face the devastation of their middle generation due to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Neither country can afford to simply watch their populations be depleted at such an alarming rate. This paper seeks to propose how an intergenerational framework might be applied to this situation with the hope that intergenerational policies and approaches might ameliorate this social crisis.     

Keynote 3. Living in the Valley of Death

Abstract

In 2003 alone, HIV/AIDS killed more than three million people, of which between 2.2 and 2.4 million were from Sub-Saharan Africa. This disease is having a devastating effect on the previously firm foundations of intergenerational relationships in affected countries. For many nations in Africa, Asia and South America, life has become a mirage, a paradox in which almost everything is overshadowed by the pangs of death. Poverty, HIV/AIDS and, surprisingly, compassion are the combined common causes of death. Consequently, social, ecological, economic, political and educational systems are almost entirely dislocated. Traditions demand that the young ones should outlive their elders. So there is a deliberate effort on the part of the elderly to embrace death in attempting to be compassionate. This paper is an attempt to explore this scenario with the aim of articulating the linkage between poverty and HIV/AIDS, and proposing ways of reducing their impact through intergenerational programming.     

Interdependence in Asian Families

Abstract

The Asian extended family has been characterized by the principle of ‘interdependence’ between generations in praxis. In gerontological literature, it is known as ‘generalized reciprocity’ which extends between generations. To explore the concept of interdependence further, and to examine its translation into reality within multigenerational families, a qualitative research study involving three-generation families was conducted in Singapore. The results of 30 interviews are reported from a total of 10 families. The different aspects of interdependence and its impact on the emotional components of relationships between generations will be described, within the context of a fast modernizing city. The implications of findings for policies, services and intergenerational programs conclude the paper.     

The impact of AIDS on income and human capital

This paper studies the impact of HIV/AIDS on per capita income and education. It explores two channels on how HIV/AIDS affects income that have not been sufficiently stressed by previous literature: the reduction of the incentives to stay in school due to shorter expected longevity and the reduction in productivity of experienced workers. In the model, individuals live for three periods, may get infected in the second period, and with some probability die of AIDS before reaching the third period of their lives. Parents care for the welfare of the future generations so that they will maximize lifetime utility of their dynasty. The simulations predict that the most affected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in the future will be, on average, 30% poorer than they would be without AIDS. Schooling will decline in some cases by 40%. These figures are dramatically reduced with widespread medical treatment, as it increases the survival probability and productivity of infected individuals.     

Intergenerational Solidarity in Korean Immigrant Families

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study is to advance the concepts of the intergenerational solidarity model by using samples of Korean immigrant families. This advancement will be useful for subsequent quantitative studies. This exploratory study uncovered multiple themes that support intergenerational solidarity between Korean immigrant grandparents and grandchildren. These themes characterized supportive relationships based on affection, consensus, a mutual exchange of resources, familial norm, and structural factors such as cohabitation or religion. At the same time, this study showed disagreement and tensions between generations which resulted from different attitudes toward roles and values, as well as being burdened by care. The results of this study provide basic perspectives to clinicians, service providers, and researchers and will improve their understanding of intergenerational relationships among Korean immigrants.     

The construct of intergenerational solidarity in a lineage perspective: A discussion on underlying theoretical assumptions

Although the construct of intergenerational solidarity has been crucial in analyses of relationships between family generations and contradictory results are obtained, the theoretical assumptions underlying the construct have not been discussed. The present aim is to make this construct of intergenerational solidarity a subject of debate, primarily focusing on the assumed connections between the dimensions of the construct and the theoretical presumptions found in Durkheim's concept of mechanical solidarity. The discussion relies on various empirical studies of family generations. It is concluded that the theoretical assumptions underlying the construct do not seem to be adequate for describing family relations across generations, and an alternative theoretical approach is suggested as a basis for further discussion.     

Using Photovoice to Understand Barriers and Enablers to Southern Labrador Inuit Intergenerational Interaction

In Indigenous communities, strong intergenerational relationships have been identified as valuable due to the ways they contribute to cultural continuity and community wellness. This project uses Photovoice, a qualitative, participatory research method in which participants take photographs to examine Southern Inuit older adult and youth representations of intergenerational relationships in Labrador, Canada. Photovoice proved to be useful in accessing elder and youth perspectives on intergenerational engagement in this community, while bringing diverse generations together in a shared, meaningful activity. Our findings suggest that family, community, and the transmission of cultural knowledge are hubs of intergenerational engagement.     

Keynote 2. Viewing Participants as Resources for One Another,Communities and Societies

Abstract

The new millennium has heralded fundamental shifts in our sense of security and solidarity. Systemic changes are warranted to restructure human relationships both within and between diverse communities. The call for establishing ‘resilient’ communities is becoming a common theme as governments worldwide struggle to maintain social cohesion. The primary purpose of this paper will be to advance the proposition that communities are strengthened economically and socially through the creation of strategic initiatives that foster the establishment and ongoing maintenance of intergenerational solidarity. Intergenerational solidarity is described as an effective vehicle for converting life into a dynamic learning laboratory with mutual benefits for individuals, groups and society. Ageist attitudes and aged-based stereotypes, particularly as applied to older adults and aging, are seen as a threat to intergenerational solidarity. The conventional solidarity model requires comparison and challenge from a framework that incorporates the possibility for negative tensions arising from intergenerational competition for scarce resources and services. A lifespan development perspective is offered as an effective means for viewing how socio-economic conditions and the policy agenda influence interactions between the generations. Core ingredients for developing and sustaining meaningful interaction between generations are proposed and a view of the future is given where aging and the social roles of older adults are transformed.     

Humor Your Way to Good Health

ABSTRACT

Although humor has been used in many ways, humor practices have not been fully conceptualized or utilized as a means to impact major concerns on a societal level. In this intergenerational model demonstration, humor practices were re-conceptualized and used as an effective vehicle for communicating messages to impact a societal issue, overweight and obesity among children. This objective was operationalized through an intergenerational project of the Legacy Leadership Institute on Humor Communication and Health (LLIHCH). Legacy Leaders were trained to use humor practices to convey messages about healthy eating and physical activity to children. They participated in interactive instruction on key topics (nutrition, humor practices, intergenerational relationships, children and schools, leadership, and instructional methods. Legacy Leaders used this training to conduct the Humor Your Way to Good Health program in two public elementary schools. Assessments indicate the children benefit significantly from the Humor Your Way to Good Health intergenerational program in terms of the knowledge acquired and its application to making choices that support healthy behaviors. The unique humor approach captures the attention and imagination of children. The intergenerational approach unites children and adults in a joint quest for healthier lifestyles. Together, they are addressing the epidemic of overweight and obesity among children.     

Where Do We Stand? Testing the Foundation of a Shared Site Intergenerational Program

Abstract

Shared site intergenerational care programs provide ongoing services simultaneously to old and young community members at a single facility, thereby, meeting the care needs of multiple generations. However, they face the challenge of sustainability common to all community-based programs. We employed the results management model to identify program elements that may enhance or inhibit sustainability of intergenerational programming at a shared site facility involving a child development lab school and adult day services program. The 4-step results management approach is a strengths-based model that supports community capacity and achievement of community and program goals. The current paper describes the first step in the results management approach, mapping the terrain, which involves gathering evidence of community needs and strengths. Focus groups were conducted with eleven staff members from both programs after a 4-month intergenerational program. The focus groups targeted the needs and strengths related to intergenerational programming. Respondents identified strengths that enhanced staff members' and clients' capacity for collaboration. These included affective and developmental benefits for both generations and strong partnerships between staff members. Respondents also identified factors that limited collaboration, such as the need for greater authority support and cross-training opportunities. Findings from our study have been used by program administrators to continue using the results management approach to further build intergenerational community and expand the scope of evaluating intergenerational shared site programs. Other intergenerational programs may utilize the results management model to enhance intergenerational programming and increase program sustainability.     

Aging in Timorese Exile: (Im)mobilities of Care and Intergenerational Relationships

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses transnational care and border regimes in the context of the East Timorese exile in rural Indonesia. Drawing from multi-sited ethnographic research, it explores the ways older people cope with family separation and life in exile, their aspirations, when and how transnational care becomes “on hold”, and how they deal with the impossibility of meeting intergenerational and cultural obligations. Analyzing care using the lens of “circulation”, the paper attends to the asymmetries entailed in intergenerational relationships as well as to how uneven power relations of border regimes shape transnational care exchanges. In the context of “aging in exile”, the paper underlines the importance of understanding older persons’ narratives as they are linked with the ambivalences of other family members across generations. The paper argues that the forms of immobility withholding or limiting caregiving can transcend physical boundaries. They can include the social and emotional borders conflict-divided communities build against one another over time. These “imaginary” borders require us to think about the additional asymmetries entailed in precarious familial relations and how this affects the multiple meanings of care in the context of contemporary border regimes and amid enduring legacies of violence.     

Intergenerational continuity in parenting: a review and theoretical integration

Abstract

Objective: This review evaluates literature on how parenting behaviors are passed from one generation to the next in families by providing a new definitional framework to organize existing work, utilizing this framework to review literature on intergenerational continuity in parenting behaviors, and proposing a new developmental framework for understanding the etiology of intergenerational continuity in parenting behaviors.

Design: The present review examines 31 studies of intergenerational continuity in parenting, summarizes the findings offered by these studies, and integrates this existing literature in a theoretical framework for considering the etiology of intergenerational continuity in parenting behaviors.

Results: Results indicate that parental warmth, hostility, and behavioral control each demonstrate intergenerational continuity, and that internalizing and externalizing behavior serve as potential mediators of intergenerational continuity across all three types of parenting behaviors.

Conclusions: Parenting behaviors falling in the warmth, hostility, and behavioral control domains each demonstrate modest continuity across generations. Internalizing and externalizing behaviors developed by children in response to parenting in their family of origin may persist and cause similar patterns of parenting when these children grow up and start their own families. Partner psychopathology and parenting styles may moderate these externalizing and internalizing pathways to intergenerational continuity in parenting.     

Retirement Income Security in the United States of America

Abstract

Population aging in the United States poses a challenge for the present and coming generations: how to financially support the growing numbers of retired people? There is also a need to explore the potential for conflict across generations if young people see themselves as funding a system that may not be able to support them fully when they are older. This paper explores this intergenerational dimension and suggests that such stories of potential conflict are not borne out by research.     

Age-Condensed and Age-Gapped Families

ABSTRACT

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey, Mature Women's Cohort, this study found that not only is a sizable minority of mature women likely to reside with their aging parents and relatives in any given survey year, but that this trend increases over time. Unexpectedly, black women were found to be more likely than white women to reside in age-gapped families, signifying that they were more likely than white women to delay childbirth. Black women also were found to have greater frequencies and prevalence of residing in intergenerational families than white women. This pattern indicated, by extension, that intergenerational responsibilities might be a greater factor contributing to delayed childbirth for black women than was the case for white women. As expected, few aging parents or relatives were found in age-condensed families. The presence of grandchildren, rather than a respondent's own children, apparently accounted for this finding. This pattern suggested that, for maturing women who had been teenage mothers, the flow of intergenerational responsibilities proceeds more extensively in the direction of subsequent generations rather than toward previous generations.     

Farm Friends

Abstract

Intergenerational programs have proliferated in community and educational settings, yet research on their effects and impacts lags (Kaplan, 2002; Kuehne, 1998/99), and the benefits and learning that occur for participants are under-theorized (Abrams and Giles, 1999; Smith and Yeager, 1999). Similarly, insufficient research has been reported on the learning that takes place in environmental education programs. In this paper we focus on the relationship that developed between community elders and elementary school-aged children during the first year of an intergenerational environmental education project. Our goal is to better understand these experiences so we can sustain participation and develop programs rich in rewards for elders and children. We are particularly interested in the nature of intergenerational learning that occurs when children are brought together with community elders for environmental education that is integrated into a school program. Granville and Ellis (1999) propose that for a program to be defined as intergenerational, it must show a benefit and value for both generations and “demonstrate an improvement in the quality of life for both, and from that, an improvement in the quality of life for all” (p. 236). We concur with these criteria and designed a program linking community elders with farming backgrounds with one class of 18 grade-seven girls for the purpose of fostering environmental consciousness. In this paper we focus our attention on the learnings of participants in order to understand the mutuallearning that occurs in an intergenerational environmental program.     

Against memory-as-remedy to the traumatic aftermaths of Nigeria-Biafra war past: whither justice?

ABSTRACT

This article examines recent scholarship proposing the use of memory practice to remedy the traumatic aftermaths of Nigeria-Biafra War past. The assumption sustained in this scholarship is that through certain cultural memory practices such as truth commissions and commemorative rituals some form of appeasement might be reached regarding the extent of subsistence of that traumatic past. We fault these scholarly claims proposing memory as panacea to mass injustices and tragedies. In addition to the problematic proposals for using memory to remedy past atrocities in Nigeria, we observe that the question of justice is either absent or construed sometimes vaguely as one and the same with memorialisation. Accordingly, this paper further explores the place of justice in (and its implications for) this recent scholarship on Nigeria-Biafra War past. By inserting and centralising questions of justice in the discourse of that war, we seek to rethink the assumptions of memory practice as a remedy to past atrocities in Nigeria. The underlying argument of our discussion is that not only does the emphasis on memory diminish the political nature of the conflict but also that resort to memory indicates a continued reluctance to address the fundamental questions of political in/justice in Nigeria.     

Permanency Planning for HIV/AIDS Affected Children

Abstract

As thousands of women are added to the surveillance data each year, the AIDS epidemic continues to be far reaching. And, as the number of infected women increase, there is an increase in the number of children affected by HIV. This article reviews the existing literature of AIDS affected children who have experienced or will experience the death of one or both parents as a result of HIV/AIDS. Approaches to culturally relevant, alternative permanency planning are examined which seek to serve as a guide for HIV-infected parents and human service providers.     

上海家庭结构特征分析

目前,上海家庭结构总体呈现:夫妇核心家庭、一人户家庭明显上升;标准核心家庭明显下降;三代直系家庭维持稳定。但是,从上海户籍细分来看,外来人口家庭结构已在很大程度上影响了上海的家庭结构模式,并在一人户家庭、夫妇核心家庭、标准核心家庭、三代直系家庭等家庭结构方面与上海户籍家庭存在着巨大的差异。基于第六次人口普查数据分析,提出以下建议:外来人口家庭已成为上海家庭结构中的重要单元,面对外来人口家庭结构年轻化的特点,对教育、卫生等公共服务设施的配备要未雨绸缪;上海户籍家庭的晚婚晚育与低生育率显著,合理的生育政策将有助于家庭间的代际扶持;上海户籍三代直系家庭比例保持稳定,政府应鼓励这种代际扶持。     

Ethnicity,Families and Social Capital: Caring Relationships across Italian and Caribbean Transnational Families

Social capital theorists acknowledge that caring networks operating within and above all across households lie at the heart of families and communities. They also see these networks and family bonds as generally declining in contemporary society due to individualisation. However, there seems to be little empirical evidence documenting these processes in detail, particularly with regards to minority ethnic and transnational families. This article explicitly addresses reciprocal relationships in ethnic minority families, focusing on different forms of care circulating within transcultural and intergenerational family and kin networks. By doing so, this discussion reveals many nuances of family life and the processes by which cultural norms, values, attitudes and behaviour are transmitted, transformed and maintained across generations and geographical distance.