Older people in America's immigrant families: Dilemmas of dependence,integration, and isolation

Immigration to the US has given rise to a population of older people who migrate here to be close to their children. Although highly integrated into their intergenerational families, these seniors voice dissatisfaction with their lives in the US. Intensive interviews with 28 transnational seniors demonstrate that their dissatisfaction stems from the contradictions between high cultural expectations for family sociability and structural constraints on kin interaction in the US. Their dissatisfaction is exacerbated by factors isolating them from social contacts outside the family. Although mobility limitations and not speaking English contribute to their isolation, immigrant families play a role. Older people are sometimes isolated by heavy domestic responsibilities in their child's household, solicitous offspring who insulate parents from practical aspects of daily life, and by a collective family ethos that calls on aging parents to subordinate their needs to those of other family members.     

Building a Humane Society for Older People: Compassionate Policy Making for Integration,Participation, and Positive Ageing Within a Framework of Intergenerational Solidarity

This article explores the global challenge of population aging with a specific focus on the concepts of integration and participation of older people in society within the context of “realizing a society for all ages” as promoted by the United Nations. It is proposed that governments worldwide need to embrace new ways of thinking about population aging that include strategic initiatives for strengthening the social contract that fosters generational interdependence. The meaning of “positive aging” is explored at both the individual and social levels, with implications for quality-of-life issues involving intergenerational relationships. The point is made that while the promotion of positive aging is commendable on both philosophical and health grounds it can be problematic for those older people who for a range of legitimate reasons are unable to fulfill the notion of positive or active aging. The longevity revolution will require the emergence of a more humane society that undertakes to reconceptualize what older age means, together with exploring new ways of enhancing the citizenship status of older people through the development and promotion of innovative intergenerational relationships. A call is made for a wider engagement of the citizenry in the processes involved in the formulation and implementation of policy making.     

Make Poverty History: Political Communication in Action

The number of groups advocating on behalf of older people, their activities, and their influence suggest that a transnational advocacy network around aging is emerging, but there have been no attempts to study how dense this network is, nor how power is distributed within it. Through collective action frame analysis, this article explores whether organizations advocating on behalf of older people represent the variety of global aging experiences in both developed and less-developed contexts. The analysis relies on four types of evidence: documentary, survey, interview, and observation. Advocacy groups use a number of diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames. The findings support arguments in the literature that diverse collective action frames can be more of an asset than a liability because they increase the network's reach and resonance with multiple stakeholders. Although the aging advocacy network is not very dense, it is becoming denser because of the rise of the human rights master frame and the rally for a UN Convention on the Rights of Older People. The frame empowers the network to use its diversity to its advantage, since individual organizations can work for whatever piece of the human rights frame matches best with their organization's mandate. However, there are still major power imbalances within the network. While it is growing more inclusive of voices from less developed countries, global civil society remains a space for organizations with resources, which those organizations based in poorer countries simply do not have.     

Taking older people's rights seriously: the role of international law

Older people face many difficult challenges that amount to a deplorable violation of their basic human rights (poverty, discrimination, denial of social services, etc.). However, the world has been slow to react. Factors that limit global responses to the challenges of aging include: limited political will, the prevalence of neo-liberalism, and NGOs' longstanding advocacy for other seemingly "more" disadvantaged groups. Such oppression of and discrimination against older people require a concerted world-wide response. We contend that the introduction of an international convention on the human rights of older people is most relevant. Reinforced by a potent international monitoring system, the convention should contain comprehensive and legally binding provisions that require participating states to promote older people's rights. It is argued that international law would be a powerful force in defending and protecting older persons, operating as a baseline for establishing underlying values for national aging policies and linking older persons' concerns with other segments of society.     

Attitudes Toward Intergenerational Redistribution in the Welfare State

Which motivations explain attitudes toward intergenerational redistribution? This study presents two perspectives. The first one is demographic aging where individuals’ attitudes are influenced by short- and long-term self-interest. The second perspective is socialization into a certain institutional context where people internalize the reciprocity and the deservingness norms. Besides investigating the impact of these motivations, the empirical analysis assesses their relative importance for explaining attitudes toward intergenerational redistribution. The ordinary least-squares regression draws on data of the “Attitudes Toward The Welfare State” survey that was conducted in 2008 in Germany. The study investigates the working age group’s attitude toward relative governmental spending for older people. The empirical analysis yields that people are motivated by long-term self-interest and hold the state responsible to protect them from the perceived future risk of old-age poverty. Also, norms of reciprocity and of deservingness are important to support intergenerational redistribution, whereas the latter seems to be the relatively most important motivation. We can take this as a sign of intergenerational cohesion that is relevant against the background of accelerating demographic aging and resulting pressure on institutions of intergenerational redistribution.     

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.     

Taking Older People's Rights Seriously: The Role of International Law

ABSTRACT

Older people face many difficult challenges that amount to a deplorable violation of their basic human rights (poverty, discrimination, denial of social services, etc.). However, the world has been slow to react. Factors that limit global responses to the challenges of aging include: limited political will, the prevalence of neo-liberalism, and NGOs' longstanding advocacy for other seemingly “more” disadvantaged groups. Such oppression of and discrimination against older people require a concerted world-wide response. We contend that the introduction of an international convention on the human rights of older people is most relevant. Reinforced by a potent international monitoring system, the convention should contain comprehensive and legally binding provisions that require participating states to promote older people's rights. It is argued that international law would be a powerful force in defending and protecting older persons, operating as a baseline for establishing underlying values for national aging policies and linking older persons' concerns with other segments of society.     

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.     

Public Policy and Poverty Among the Oldest Old

In neglecting to acknowledge the heterogeneity of our aging population, we encourage policies that meet the needs of the majority of older people but discount the needs of those characterized by lifelong poverty. The overall economic well-being of the "oldest old," historically the poorer cohort among the age%: is anticipated to improve over the next 50 years. This improvement will increase the economic gap between the majority of the aged and a minority who will carry their existing poverty into old age. Economic protection for the "always-poor" can be improved and intergenerational stress reduced if we identify now those with a high probability of poverty in old age and develop policies in the 1990s aimed at meeting their future needs.     

Reconfigured Reciprocity: How Aging Taiwanese Immigrants Transform Cultural Logics of Elder Care

Drawing on 55 interviews with older Taiwanese immigrants who relocated to the United States at an earlier life stage, the author argues that changing contextual features involved in the processes of international migration encourage and even demand aging immigrants to reconstruct cultural logics of aging and geriatric care. He develops the concept of reconfigured reciprocity to demonstrate how aging migrant populations transform cultural logics of intergenerational responsibility, obligation, and entitlement to reconcile the tension between ethnic tradition and modernity. First, he reveals how many of the respondents' lack of caregiving for their own parents undermines their sense of entitlement to receive care from younger generations. Furthermore, he highlights how the structural squeeze among work, family, and caregiving with which the younger generation struggles further discourages the respondents from relying on their children. Finally, the author underscores how aging immigrants evoke the concept of Americanization to reconstruct expectations of how they should be taken care of in their twilight years.     

Improving quality of life in old age: the role of regular physical activity

Physical activity in old age has been shown to produce considerable physiological, psychological and social benefits. However, many older adults take very little exercise. Lack of facilities or meaningful role models together with social and cultural expectations concerning the appropriateness of physical activity for older adults have been cited as reasons for lack of involvement. The development of intergenerational programs is suggested as a potential means of increasing the proportion of older individuals who participate in regular physical exercise.     

Using intergenerational relationship teaching strategies in a college-level online gerontology course

Society members educated in gerontology are needed to care for older adults in the United States. Young people may have misconceptions and lack of awareness about aging and older adults, which may influence choosing jobs working with elders. However, research has shown that on-ground courses using intergenerational relationships as a teaching strategy have proved to be effective in changing the views of students. This article reports on the experiences of college-level students in an online gerontology course that used an intergenerational relationship teaching strategy. Through journal entries and discussion board postings, students shared new understandings about aging, elders, and themselves. Data were analyzed using narrative inquiry and the threedimensional (3D) inquiry space. Findings showed students’ views could be changed through intergenerational relationships with reflection in an online course.     

Reflections on Intergenerational Policy in Europe: The Past Twenty Years and Looking into the Future

This article will start from a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-sponsored meeting on intergenerational programs in Dortmund, Germany, in 1999, as this was an awareness-raising moment for intergenerational programs in Europe. The connection between lifelong learning and intergenerational learning as one reason for the increased interest for intergenerational programs in the creation of European policy are discussed and connected to demography, health, aging, and well-being in policy. Therefore recent actions and reports from a European perspective are analyzed in order to reflect over the social and cultural factors that can have an impact and influence the intergenerational field in Europe in the future.     

Intergenerational interaction between old and young in creative task

By comparing intergenerational to same-generation interactions in creative activities, we aimed to reveal characteristic behaviors of older and younger adults in intergenerational interactions using a wooden block task. Four categories (“Proposal request”, “New proposal”, “Reactions to proposal”, “Assessments of partner’s behavior”) were extracted from conversations during task performance. In intergenerational groups, the ratio of utterances of “Proposal request” (encouraging a new proposal to partner) were higher than in same-generation groups for older adults. In intergenerational groups, older people assumed the role of encouraging younger people to suggest new ideas, and older people’s such empathic behaviors might provoke lively arguments.     

Intergenerational Relations: The Views of Older Jews and Arabs

The aim of the current qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of older Jews and Arabs on intergenerational family relations. Interviews were conducted with 20 men and women, 10 in each group, ages 65 and older. Five themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: family is the major component of meaning of life; two dimensions of intergenerational relations: solidarity and ambivalence; intergenerational communication; filial expectations; and home and family as sources of honor and respect. Similarities and differences between the two groups were identified and explained, using modernization theory and cultural context.     

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.     

Privacy revisited? Old ideals, new realities, and their impact on biobank regimes

Biobanks, collecting human specimen, medical records, and lifestyle-related data, face the challenge of having contradictory missions: on the one hand serving the collective welfare through easy access for medical research, on the other hand adhering to restrictive privacy expectations of people in order to maintain their willingness to participate in such research. In this article, ethical frameworks stressing the societal value of low-privacy expectations in order to secure biomedical research are discussed. It will turn out that neither utilitarian nor communitarian or classical libertarian ethics frameworks will help to serve both goals. Instead, John Rawls’ differentiation of the “right” and the “good” is presented in order to illustrate the possibility of “serving two masters”: individual interests of privacy, and societal interests of scientific progress and intergenerational justice. In order to illustrate this counterbalancing concept with an example, the five-pillar concept of the German Ethics Council will be briefly discussed.     

Parenting in Later Life: A Cross-Cultural Study

This study explored older parents’ beliefs about their parental role with their adult children, their perceptions of intergenerational conflicts between themselves and their adult children, and the negotiation of autonomy versus dependence with adult children in later life. The influence of cultural norms and mutual dependence on these intergenerational relationships was also evaluated. Focus groups were conducted with two groups of older adults attending a senior center in New York City—one who identified as American and the other as Asian Indian. Implications of the findings and recommendations for social workers are highlighted.     

Rights of access to land for outdoor recreation in New Zealand: : dilemmas concerning justice and equity

Rights of access to land for outdoor recreation are of current concern to many western governments. They require a balance to be struck between collective rights to the land and individual rights of exclusion. Theories of land rights have limitations in informing the appropriate apportionment of such rights for recreational access since they emanate from such a disparate range of cultural and philosophical positions and invariably they are based on the productive attributes of the land. Collectively, such theories do offer a number of characteristics that might inform land rights apportionment for access: historically determined justice, contemporary justice through citizenship, distributional equity, intergenerational equity and economic efficiency. These characteristics are explored in the context of the development of recreational access rights in New Zealand. Whilst notions of justice can be seen to be transgressed in land rights structures imposed through European settlement, these structures themselves were founded on notions of equity as a direct result of the loss of access rights in 19th Century England. The reassertion of Maori land rights compromises both distributional and intergenerational equity but may make a contribution to economic efficiency as well as re-establishing historically determined justice. The case study illustrates inherent dilemmas in rights apportionment for access to land for outdoor recreation where ultimately it may not be possible to achieve any consensual outcome.