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Understanding the experiences of racialized older people through an intersectional life course perspective
Abstract
This article proposes the development of an intersectional life course perspective that is capable of exploring the links between structural inequalities and the lived experience of aging among racialized older people. Merging key concepts from intersectionality and life course perspectives, the authors suggest an analytic approach to better account for the connections between individual narratives and systems of domination that impinge upon the everyday lives of racialized older people. Our proposed intersectional life course perspective includes four dimensions: 1) identifying key events and their timing, 2) examining locally and globally linked lives, 3) exploring categories of difference and how they shape identities, 4) and assessing how processes of differentiation, and systems of domination shape the lives, agency and resistance among older people. Although applicable to various forms of marginalization, we examine the interplay of racialization, immigration, labour and care in later life to highlight relationships between systems, events, trajectories, and linked lives. The illustrative case example used in this paper emerged from a larger critical ethnographic study of aging in the Filipino community in Montreal, Canada. We suggest that an intersectional life course perspective has the potential to facilitate a deeper understanding of the nexus of structural, personal and relational processes that are experienced by diverse groups of older people across the life course and into late life.
... This article nuances this distinction between ageing in place and ageing in-between and highlights the complexity, situationality and temporality of ageing for people with a migration background. An increasing number of scholars are now calling for "old age" to be taken out of the etcetera in intersecting positions (Freixas et al., 2012) and instead be brought to the fore by developing more critical perspectives in gerontology (Calasanti, 2010;Ferrer et al., 2017;Torres, 2015). This can be done by emphasising the relational and temporal aspects of ageing by staying alert to the situatedness and everyday performances of individuals. ...
... Theoretically, the article contributes to the ongoing debates about ageing migrant women in critical feminist gerontology and transnational ageing by drawing on intersectionality and "doing" perspectives in gerontological research (Ferrer et al., 2017;Nikander, 2009;Previtali & Spedale, 2021;Syed, 2023). The idea behind this theoretical orientation is to bring agency to the fore by highlighting the performances (or doing), whilst at the same time staying sensitive to how age, gender and migrancy intersect. ...
... On a theoretical level, the study contributes to the ongoing debate in feminist critical gerontology about the need for an intersectional analysis of the life course in order to highlight how different social positions such as gender, age and migrancy influence later life (Aner & Dosch, 2023;Ferrer et al., 2017;Freixas et al., 2012;Torres, 2019). Social positions overlap and generate unique configurations of privilege and inequality along the power axes. ...
This article elaborates on how Turkish-born women in Sweden do old age in relation to gender and migrancy and aims to understand the fluid process of doing over their life course. It draws upon 20 in-depth and semi-structured interviews with Turkish-born women aged 60-78 and aims to address the tensions between agency and intersecting power positions. Theoretically, the article relies on critical feminist gerontology and doing old age to address the negotiations and performances of the interviewed women. The findings show that there are several ambivalences and dilemmas in how the women do old age in a transnational setting. Intergenerational and gendered old age care comes to fore as a significant negotiation site. The women negotiate identity categories with both imagined others and the social actors in their lives (such as their children) over their life course, which implies the situated and relational aspect of doing old age.
... To understand the multifaceted nature of family caregiving of Muslim migrants in high-income countries, this study used the intersectional life-course perspective framework (Elder, 1994;Ferrer et al., 2017). This framework brings together lifecourse intersectionality through four dimensions: (1) identifying key events (i.e. ...
... This framework brings together lifecourse intersectionality through four dimensions: (1) identifying key events (i.e. dementia care) and their timing; (2) examining locally and globally linked lives; (3) exploring multifaceted factors and how they shape identities; and (4) assessing how systems of domination shape the lives, agency and resistance among caregivers from migrant and minority groups (Ferrer et al., 2017). We adapted this framework to explain the experience of Muslim migrant caregivers that are inextricably influenced by familial, socio-cultural, racial, religious, and other structural factors, and linked to their local and global lives. ...
... The main similarities both caregivers shared include cultural mores and religious beliefs that motivate caregivers to provide familial care for PwD, the feminisation of dementia care, the lack of dementia care education, dementia stigma, care burden and stigma associated with the use of formal care services Boughtwood et al., 2011;Bowes & Wilkinson, 2003;Kane et al., 2021). These similarities are indicators of the global impact on Muslim migrant caregivers (Elder, 1994;Ferrer et al., 2017). Therefore, in high-income countries a life-course perspective to analyse the needs and preferences of Muslim migrant caregivers is imperative when code signing dementia care services for them and those they care for in order to support them to keep PwD at home for as long as they wish. ...
Background:
The cultural and religious beliefs and values of family caregivers of people with dementia have a profound impact on the use of dementia care services in high-income countries. Yet, little is known about how caregivers of people with dementia from a Muslim migrant background in high-income countries perceive their caregiving journey.
Aim:
To synthesise findings from rigorous qualitative studies on the experiences of family caregivers of people with dementia from a Muslim migrant background in high-income countries.
Methods:
Meta-ethnography of qualitative studies was applied to address the aim. Five databases including MEDLINE, CINHAL, PsycINFO, Web of Science and Scopus were searched. Inclusion criteria were qualitative or mixed study design studies on family caregivers of people with dementia from a Muslim migrant background in a home care setting in high-income countries. Studies were excluded if they used a quantitative research design, were not written in English and were not original studies.
Findings:
In total 17 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the study. Meta-synthesis of the data revealed three themes from the life course intersectionality perspective: caregiving as both positive and negative experiences; factors affecting caregivers' experiences; and coping strategies used by caregivers.
Conclusion:
Caregivers of people with dementia from a Muslim migrant background living in high-income countries have both positive and negative caregiving experiences. However, dementia care services were not tailored to address their care needs and expectations arising from their religious and cultural beliefs.
... Second, the scoping review found that the current literature also emphasized health-related and caregiving outcomes from the perspective of either the older adults or the Filipino caregiver. While discussions of caregiving in relation to health-related outcomes continues to represent a dominant analytical direction within the broader gerontological and ethnogerontological literature, several scholars have highlighted how this research tends to overlook within-group differences and diversity, as well as the interplay of intergenerational perspectives and complexities and intersections of gender, culture, and aging (Ferrer et al., 2017b;Wray, 2003). These tensions and complexities warrant further attention, particularly from the perspectives of multiple members of the family, as well as transnational kin networks. ...
... Indeed, as cross-border economic opportunities become available and normalized, family care structures undergo significant shifts and restructuring in both the Philippines and across diasporic communities. As such, transnational aging becomes an issue of concern as older Filipinos navigate different healthcare systems, retirement and pension schemes, and caregiving arrangements (Ferrer et al., 2017b). ...
... The findings from this scoping review suggests that additional research that examines the interplay between immigration, labour, and care throughout the life course and into later life could offer a way to address gaps within the existing literature on Filipino aging specifically and immigrant aging across Global North societies (Tiamzon, 2013). In particular, we draw on work that utilizes intersectional, transnational and, multidirectional perspectives in order to draw on the complexities and nuances that older Filipino adults encounter in their later lives (see for example Ferrer et al., 2017b). Intersectional, transnational, intergenerational, and multidirectional approaches would help in exploring how overlapping social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination impact the aging experiences of older Filipinos in Global North diasporas, as well as acknowledge the experiences of transnationalism, immigration, caregiving, and other experiences in later life that shape the unique realities and histories of older Filipinos (Ferrer et al., 2017b). ...
Drawing on international research, this article examines and navigates through the existing social gerontological and ethnogerontological literature to assess how Filipino aging is understood within Global North societies. A scoping review was conducted in 2018 and in 2022 to offer key insights into how Filipinos age in both the ancestral homeland and increasingly within Global North diasporas. While the existing literature on Filipino aging does mirror existing ethnogerontological literature, which heavily focuses on indicators of cognitive, physical and mental health, and access and provision to formal services, the Filipino-specific literature calls attention to emerging dynamics distinctly related to transnational aging, and renegotiated caring dynamics within intergenerational Filipino families and kinship networks. This paper considers a future research agenda of the growing realities for aging Filipino communities across Global North contexts.
... Actualmente, el corpus teórico en la gerontología feminista, conjugada con las teorías interseccionales Krekula, 2007;Wilinska, 2010), posibilitan indagar en el nexo entre género y vejez integrando múltiples dimensiones que posicionan a las mujeres mayores en estructuras de diferenciación/opresión y resistencia/agencia. Entendemos que estructuras de posicionamiento social (edades, racialización, pertenencia étnica, identidades de género, orientaciones sexuales, clases sociales, entre otras) son a su vez categorías relacionales y dinámicas durante el curso de vida (Ferrer, Grenier, Brotman y Koehn, 2017). La interseccionalidad, como teoría de la diferenciación y diversidad contemporánea, abre espacios para profundizar las interrelaciones de subordinación/resistencia entre diversas categorías sociales encarnadas por mujeres mayores. ...
... La interseccionalidad, como teoría de la diferenciación y diversidad contemporánea, abre espacios para profundizar las interrelaciones de subordinación/resistencia entre diversas categorías sociales encarnadas por mujeres mayores. Destacan estudios sobre población migrante femenina envejecida (Zajicek, Calasanti, Ginther, y Summers, 2006;Ferrer et al., 2017); mujeres mayores indigentes (Gonyea y Melekis, 2016) y precariedad económica-laboral en mujeres mayores (Moore y Ghilarducci, 2018). ...
... Desde un enfoque del curso de vida (Ferrer et al., 2017), destacan las trayectorias biográficas como elementos angulares para la comprensión de la participación política y activismo femenino en la vejez. Los distintos tránsitos en espacios políticos tienen que ver tanto con las edades, las posiciones estructurales, como de los contextos socio-históricos -las dictaduras, la instalación del neoliberalismo, los movimientos actuales de mujeres-en que se desarrollan las diferentes luchas. ...
Este artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación que explora las trayectorias y experiencias políticas de mujeres mayores chilenas en sus espacios de participación política y activismo. A través de un diseño metodológico cualitativo e inductivo, se realizaron entrevistas en profundidad, de carácter biográfico, a mujeres activistas mayores de 60 años que habitan y reflexionan en diversos campos posicionales de la vida social y política en Santiago de Chile. Desde la gerontología feminista y estudios interseccionales, se analiza e interpreta la información empírica producida. Los resultados permiten concluir que la participación política y el activismo femenino en la vejez se articula sobre la base de tres ejes: el lugar de la trayectoria biográfica y socio-histórica de participación política y activismo a lo largo de la vida; experiencias y situaciones de violencias y discriminación por razón de género y edad; y el despliegue de ciertas estrategias de resistencia de agencia colectiva. Se reflexiona sobre el accionar colectivo de mujeres mayores y cómo la deuda histórica de politización de la vejez femenina puede hoy encontrar cabida en los múltiples contextos en que se gestan los actuales movimientos sociales y feministas.
... Second, we aim to advance an intersectional and life course approach that integrates key concepts and methodologies from both intersectionality framework (Crenshaw, 1989;Choo & Ferree, 2010) and life course perspective (Elder et al., 2003;Mayer, 2009). The intersectional and life course approach not only considers the interplay of multiple factors, but it also stresses the timing of the intersectionality (see also Ferrer et al., 2017). We illustrate this approach through exploring the intersectionality of race and immigrant status and the time dimension of the intersectionality in shaping physical activity patterns. ...
... There is a need to examine the varying gap in physical activity based on race and immigrant status over the life span and why. More recently, Ferrer et al. (2017) have used such an approach to better understand the experiences of aging among older adults from racialised groups. They have outlined specific steps combining key concepts from both the life course perspective as well as the intersectionality perspective in their qualitative study of aging experiences among racialised immigrants. ...
Physical activity improves health and well-being, but not everyone can be equally active. Previous research has suggested that racial minorities are less active than their white counterparts and immigrants are less active than their native-born counterparts. In this article, we adopt an intersectional and life course approach to consider how race and immigrant status may intersect to affect physical activity across the life span. This new approach also allows us to test the long-standing habitual versus structural debate in physical activity.
... Despite the above contributions, Das Gupta and Wong (2022), similar to most previous studies of US age segregation, assumed that older adults of diverse racial-ethnic characteristics are segregated in the same magnitude, thereby failing to recognise the disproportional vulnerability of minority older adults (Ferrer et al., 2017;Zubair & Norris, 2015). But a study published more than two decades ago had highlighted a significantly higher level of segregation among African American older adults (Rogerson, 1998). ...
... While a particular population group may belong to the marginalised category on the race-ethnic axis, it may not however belong to the marginalised category on the age axis. But belonging to the marginalised categories on both the race-ethnicity and age axes, such as minority older adults in our study, may signify disproportional segregation burden (Ferrer et al., 2017;Zubair & Norris, 2015). The utility of the intersectional approach is of particular relevance to reveal the segregation burden of a/any population group characterised by marginalised identities on multiple axes, for instance the age and the race-ethnicity axes in our study. ...
A recent study shows that among the three age groups of youth, adult and older adult, youth‐older adult has the highest age segregation while youth‐adult has the lowest. Similar to many previous age segregation studies, racial‐ethnic differences, an important population axis in segregation studies, were not considered. Prior studies are also limited to using two‐group measures, failing to compare multiple groups together. We explore the complexity in measuring intersectional segregation focusing on the two axes of age and race‐ethnicity and propose a conditional approach to measure age segregation by racial‐ethnic groups, and racial‐ethnic segregation by age groups. Using this approach, we empirically study the 2010 age‐race‐ethnic segregation at the county and state levels in the United States, using census tracts as the basic units. Both the two and multigroup dissimilarity indices were used. Results show that the racial‐ethnic axis had been a stronger force in segregation than the age axis. Results also show disparities of racial‐ethnic segregation across age groups with the highest levels present among older adults and in urban counties. For all three age groups, segregation levels involving Natives and Asians tend to be higher than those without them. In contrast, age segregation was the highest between youths and older adults, and the levels varied across racial‐ethnic groups with Natives at the highest levels. Although age segregation was significantly different between urban and rural counties, higher segregation in urban areas were mostly involving Whites as opposed to higher segregation in rural counties involving minority racial groups. Studying age segregation should not be colour blinded, as nonwhite older adults in rural counties were more likely to experience higher levels of age segregation than other groups.
... The principle of 'linked lives' refers to the interdependence of human lives over the life course (Hutchison 2019). An appreciation of both the interconnectedness of human lives and the ways in which our interactions and relationships with others can have a positive and negative influence on our development lies at heart of the principle of 'linked lives' (Ferrer et al. 2017;Hutchison 2005). We know that key actors play a role in the educational experiences of care leavers for example, carers, teachers, and key workers (Driscoll 2013; Rios and Rocco 2014) and both the type of actors providing support and the nature of that support has been examined (Darmody et al. 2013;Martin and Jackson 2002;Skilbred, Iversen, and Moldestad 2017). ...
... For both Linda and Murray, the experience of parenthood was key to their later reengagement with education. In each case, this intergenerational experience in relation to parenting and being parents speaks to the heart of the principle of 'linked lives' (Ferrer et al. 2017;Hutchison 2005). For Linda, the arrival of her baby prompted a more planful and strategic approach to enhancing her future income prospects and her conditions of work guided by the broader ambition of securing a better future for her child and herself. ...
Adult care leavers who have spent time in ‘out-of-home care’ during childhood face many educational challenges. While some care leavers may manage to adhere to ‘normal’ timelines within their educational progression, others may experience delays in their educational journey or a longer-term ‘resignation’ from education during their care/post-care journey. In this paper, we offer a fuller understanding of what drives underachievement in this population, as well as what helps care leavers to re-engage with education. Using a case study approach, we explore the potential of the life course principle ‘linked lives’ for better understanding barriers to re-engagement and the processes through which key actors may promote the (re)development of learner identity, and educational re-engagement among adult care leavers, over time. We draw on analysis of data from two studies of positive educational outcomes for adult care leavers - one in education, one in the workplace. Using a linked lives lens, this theoretically-informed paper presents the concepts of support, learner identity, and educational memories as candidates for deepening our understanding of educational re-engagement of care leavers – and comparable populations facing educational challenges.
... Leveraging critical race and critical feminist theory, which focus on unequal distribution of power and social and economic opportunity, Crenshaw (1991) argued that antidiscrimination laws and policies would have the greatest eff ect by focusing on creating inclusive environments for the most disadvantaged-those holding multiple marginalized identities. Intersectional approaches emphasize that categories of diff erence, particularly social categories throughout history, align with racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism (Ferrer et al., 2017). Intersectionality provides insight into how to examine the interplay between life experiences that may include caregiving, education, employment, housing, immigration or migration status, poverty, and identity, as well as how these experiences fall within larger systems of oppression (Ferrer et al., 2017). ...
... Intersectional approaches emphasize that categories of diff erence, particularly social categories throughout history, align with racism, colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism (Ferrer et al., 2017). Intersectionality provides insight into how to examine the interplay between life experiences that may include caregiving, education, employment, housing, immigration or migration status, poverty, and identity, as well as how these experiences fall within larger systems of oppression (Ferrer et al., 2017). Although under-utilized in gerontological nursing science, intersectionality off ers an approach for addressing inequities and is responsive to the complex realities of identities and social exposures that intersect, interact, and compound one another to shape health disparities (Holman et al., 2020). ...
The health consequences of systemic racism and ageism have received growing attention as the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has illuminated long-standing inadequacies and injustices that are structurally engrained in our health systems. The current State of the Science Commentary addresses the intersecting influences of systemic racism and ageism, and other "-isms" that conspire to create disparate health outcomes for older adults from historically excluded and marginalized backgrounds. We focus specifically on the long-term care sector as a representative microcosm of structural inequities, while recognizing that these unjust barriers to health are widespread, endemic, and pervasive. We present a call to action for gerontological nursing science to engage deeply and robustly in these realities, and the ethical and scientific imperative they present to ensure that all older adults encounter just conditions for maximizing their health and well-being. [Research in Gerontological Nursing, 15(1), 6-13.].
... Norms around timing are intersectionally patterned as seen in Dressel et al.'s (1997) example of deprived ethnic groups and retirement (Holman & Walker, 2021). Social identity and lived experience therefore constantly evolve over the life span (Ferrer et al., 2017). Intersectional patterning in how people move through life transitions can help to explain intersectional outcomes. ...
As the aging phenomenon sweeps across India and calls for creating supportive structures for enabling healthy aging and productive aging for senior citizens reverberate, the importance of studying age as an element of intersectionality and cumulative disadvantage that results in disparities in healthcare access to older adults is underlined. There is evidence of intersectionality that emerges from disadvantages on account of age, caste, race, socioeconomic conditions, employment, and education, for example, and all of these have strong bearings on older adults’ access and utilization of healthcare. The cumulative disadvantage that older adults face as they age stems from the logical, theoretical, and empirical intersectionality that accrues implicitly and irreducibly with relation to time. Social gerontological explorations highlight these intersectional characteristics that result in the initiation, elaboration, and perpetuation of the cumulative disadvantage perspective that older adults face due to deprivation, discrimination, and the continuance of ageist perspectives. There is an overbearing influence of disadvantage and inequality for older adults although the characteristics of older adults reflect heterogeneity in a large measure. This chapter reviews intersectionality – its basis, origin, elaboration, and implications that result in cumulative disadvantage for older adults’ access and utilization of healthcare in India. The synthesis reflects a nuanced delve into intersectional forbearance that older adults experience in their life course as they age within a contextual situation of disadvantage. The chapter deliberates on the layers of intersectionality that coexist and interact in multiple ways to compound the perception and existence of disadvantage and discrimination for older adults in accessing care within family, society, and policy constructs. Based on the perspectives that emanate in this body of work, the chapter offers a synthesized review on cumulative disadvantage and intersectionality and provides directions for future research as well as suggestive public policy recommendations for reducing disparity and disadvantages for older adults in accessing and utilizing healthcare.
... In line with Brotman et al. (2020) and Ferrer et al. (2017), we have incorporated intersectional perspectives to analyze the power relations in play among the different actors, within the cadenced time frames and structural dynamics the narratives evoke. We used an intersectional life course approach because it offers a solid theoretical basis for understanding a set of interlocking oppressions and identities. ...
This article discusses the results of a collaborative research project aimed at understanding the life trajectories of women who have self-identified as having used violence in a context other than self-defense, which is an understudied topic. Based on semi-structured interviews and aided by an intersectional feminist framework applied to life course theory, we present a qualitative analysis of 26 women's experiences of violence, precarity, and services. The three groups of trajectories are distinguished by level of precarity as determined by the experience of violence in childhood, socioeconomic and family contexts, criminalization, intensity of violence, and whether the women received adequate support. This shows (1) the need for interventions to prevent the reproduction or aggravation of violence suffered and perpetrated; (2) the importance of considering the inter-related factors (gender, class race, etc.) that contribute to the women's precarity; and (3) that these factors must be considered to understand the contexts in which women have come to use violence, without trivializing or excusing it, but rather properly situating it with a view to better preventing and intervening in these situations. Our recommendations are aimed at ensuring that social work practices do not contribute to the enforcement of punitive measures, but support women in pursuing their path.
... The forums were one component of an integrated community-engaged research and knowledge exchange strategy that began with the research design-a combined life story narrative/Photovoice approach that employed the ILCP to give space for the emergence of diverse voices and pathways often not represented in the academic literature (see Brotman et al., 2020;Ferrer et al., 2017). Together, the ILCP and Photovoice situate the diverse lived experiences of older immigrants in Canada relative to the structural and systemic barriers underlying their struggles, while centering participants' emphasis on their resistance and resilience. ...
This article reports on a series of Stakeholder Outreach Forums hosted in Canadian communities from 2018 to 2019. These forums built on a previous research project, The Lived Experiences of Aging Immigrants, which sought to amplify the voices of older immigrants through Photovoice and life course narratives analyzed through an intersectional life course perspective. The forums used World Café methods to encourage cumulative discussions among a broad range of stakeholders who work with or influence the lives of immigrant older adults. Participants viewed the previously created Lived Experiences of Aging Immigrants Photovoice exhibit, which provided a springboard for these discussions. The forums’ aim was to increase the stakeholders’ awareness of the experiences of immigrants in Canada as they age and to create space for the stakeholders to reflect upon and discuss the experiences of aging immigrants. Here we illustrate how the forums complement the narrative Photovoice research methodology and highlight the potential of Photovoice and targeted outreach strategies to extend academic research findings to relevant stakeholders. Across all forums, participants identified structural and systemic barriers that shape experiences of and responses to social exclusion in the daily lives of immigrant older adults. They further identified challenges and strengths in their own work specific to the issues of social inclusion, caregiving, housing, and transportation. Intersectoral solutions are needed to address the structural and systemic roots of exclusion at the public policy and organizational levels.
... Current literature, including above studies, suggest that older immigrants in subsidized senior housing are a susceptible subgroup regarding loneliness. Drawing from a life course intersectionality perspective, the life-course experiences of older immigrants are likely to be heterogeneous based on structural inequalities that arise from the intersectionality of aging, race, and migration (Ferrer et al., 2017). Notably, ethnic minority older adults in subsidized senior housing are likely to possess limited economic resources, experience more chronic health problems, and be vulnerable to depression (Ciobanu et al., 2017;Gonyea et al., 2018). ...
This study compared the level of loneliness among older immigrants residing in subsidized senior housing with that of non-immigrant residents. The study also sought to examine the differential influence of perceived social cohesion on loneliness among these groups. 231 study participants were recruited from subsidized senior housing in St. Louis and the Chicago area. Multiple regression analyses showed that there was a significant difference in loneliness between immigrants and non-immigrants (b = .3, SE = 0.150, p < .05). Also, perceived social cohesion was negatively associated with loneliness (b=-.102, SE = .022, p < .001). Furthermore, immigration status moderated the relationship (b=-.147, SE = .043, p < .01), showing immigrants may benefit more from higher perceived social cohesion in terms of loneliness. The results suggest that perceived social cohesion may act as an important community-level protective factor against loneliness, particularly for older immigrants residing in subsidized senior housing. Creating socially cohesive environments, particularly for this subgroup, could be a crucial strategy for mitigating loneliness. .
... Muestra cómo las posiciones y categorías son dinámicas e interdependientes entre ellas, producto de interacciones sociales y no cualidades inherentes de las personas, vale decir, contextuales(Krekula, 2007). Si bien, la interseccionalidad se centra fuertemente en las experiencias de opresión y dominación de grupos históricamente marginalizados, también invita a observar la capacidad de agencia de estos grupos, a través de sus prácticas y estrategias de resistencias(Ferrer, Grenier, Brotman y Koehn, 2017).Para analizar la experiencia de la longevidad femenina, debemos detenernos en las relaciones entre edad y género. Por una parte, investigaciones sobre gerontología feminista e interseccionalidad(Calasanti, 2010;Krekula, 2007;Calasanti, Slevin y King, 2006), señalan el desplazamiento de la edad como estructura social tanto en los trabajos sobre interseccionalidad, como en las teorías de género y feministas. ...
One of the main demographic transformations of modern societies is the lengthening of life and the greater number of older people, compared to younger generations, being women the ones who live longer. This article describes and analyzes the daily lives of centenarian women, which has been conducted under a qualitative and ethnographic design, in central and southern territories, in Chile, by using both, the biographical interview and the direct observation techniques. Results are presented as ethnographic tales about these women, from both urban and rural areas. Results show the axes of diversity and intersectionality, in the frame of gender, care, family structures, their homes and socio-territorial features. Strategies to adapt to such contexts are highlighted, as well as the possible shapes of autonomy and agency during old ages. The findings show that enquiring about the reasons that would explain why women live longer than men have not been enough, thus, it is absolutely necessary to consider the observation of their whole lives from their feminine identities, as well as their sociocultural contexts which have helped to extend their life expectancy.
... The dismissal of racialized participants in immigrant communities, therefore, may conceal multiple layers of disadvantage that underlie inequity between racialized immigrant minorities and the dominant privileged population in Canada (Khan et al., 2017). As such, the intersectionality theory has much to offer as it unpacks various minority struggles that are often obscured within a liberal discourse of multiculturalism (Ferrer et al., 2017;Viruell-Fuentes et al., 2012). ...
Objectives
Contemporary immigration scholarship has typically treated immigrants with diverse racial backgrounds as a monolithic population. Knowledge gaps remain in understanding how racial and nativity inequities in mental health care intersect and unfold in midlife and old age. This study aims to examine the joint impact of race, migration, and old age in shaping mental health treatment.
Methods
Pooled data were obtained from the Canadian Community Health Survey (2015-2018) and restricted to respondents (aged ≥ 45 years) with mood or anxiety disorders (n=9,099). We employed multivariable logistic regression to estimate associations between race-migration nexus and past-year mental health consultations (MHC). We used Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis to identify intersecting determinants of MHC.
Results
Compared to Canadian-born Whites, racialized immigrants had greater mental health needs: poor/fair SRMH (OR=2.23, 99% CI: 1.67 – 2.99), perceived life stressful (OR=1.49, 99% CI: 1.14 – 1.95), psychiatric comorbidity (OR=1.42, 99%CI: 1.06 – 1.89) and unmet needs for care (OR=2.02, 99% CI: 1.36 – 3.02); in sharp contrast, they were less likely to access mental health services across most indicators: overall past-year MHC (OR=0.54, 99% CI: 0.41 – 0.71) and consultations with family doctors (OR=0.67, 99% CI: 0.50 – 0.89), psychologists (OR=0.67, 99% CI: 0.50 – 0.89), and social workers (OR=0.67, 99% CI: 0.50 – 0.89), with the exception of psychiatrist visits (p=0.324). The CART algorithm identifies three groups at risk of MHC service underuse: racialized immigrants aged ≥ 55 years; immigrants without high school diplomas; and linguistic minorities who were home renters.
Discussion
To safeguard health care equity for medically underserved communities in Canada, multisectoral efforts need to guarantee culturally responsive mental health care, multilingual services, and affordable housing for racialized immigrant older adults with mental disorders.
... La literatura revisada indica la necesidad de generar análisis cualitativos sobre la población de mujeres centenarias, al existir un intersticio entre investigaciones longitudinales de centenarios/as y estudios sobre género, vejez y familias en mujeres mayores. Articulado con esto, la propuesta teórica-metodológica que condujo el proceso de levantamiento de información empírica, así como el análisis de datos, fue a través de una relectura del enfoque del curso de vida desde la gerontología feminista (Hooyman et al., 2002) y perspectiva interseccional del curso de vida (Ferrer et al., 2017). Esta última observa la experiencia de la vejez mediada por relaciones entre instituciones, procesos políticos sociohistóricos, roles y normas de género, conectando las biografías individuales con barreras estructurales y sistemas más amplios de poder, dominación y opresión (Ibid.). ...
This article analyzes the life trajectories of centenarian women in relation to their family biography, the links with their sociocultural context and the various forms of social inequality. We adopt an intersectional approach to the life course. The methodology is qualitative, focused on the application of life calendars and the elaboration of ethnographic accounts. The results show that gender is a construct that configures their biographical trajectories, highlighting the dependence and interdependence that exist in family, work and social relationships and the principle of agency of centenarian women in their life experiences and aging.
... Cette note de politiques et de pratiques met de l'avant des analyses et des recommandations basées sur une compréhension des parcours de vie intersectionnels des personnes âgées immigrantes (Ferrer, Grenier, Brotman, & Koehn, 2017). Ferrer et al. définissent l'intersectionnalité comme étant une perspective qui permet de renforcer la capacité à désamorcer les racines structurelles des expériences de marginalisation. ...
Résumé
Malgré l’attention renouvelée de plusieurs médias sur la question des risques liés à la COVID-19 au sein de diverses communautés marginalisées au Québec, nous entendons encore très peu parler des personnes âgées immigrantes et de leurs proches. Dans cette note sur les politiques et pratiques, nous aborderons l’expérience du contexte pandémique chez les personnes âgées immigrantes montréalaises et leurs réseaux. Nous présenterons d’abord quelques données sociodémographiques sur les immigrants âgés montréalais. Nous exposerons ensuite nos constats sur les impacts de la COVID-19 sur les personnes âgées immigrantes, en particulier en ce qui concerne l’accès aux soins de la santé et aux services sociaux, la proche-aidance, l’emploi et le logement, à partir de nos travaux et de la littérature en gérontologie sociale. Nous terminerons en proposant quelques recommandations qui permettraient d’améliorer l’inclusion sociale des personnes âgées immigrantes et de leurs proches, autant en matière de politiques publiques que de pratiques sur le terrain.
... For a better understanding of voluntary intensity, it is thus important to take factors into account that may interconnect to oppress an individual or a group of people. Based on work from Ferrer et al. (2017), we therefore also consider factors reflecting categories of difference, such as gender, age and ethnicity. Also, structural factors, such as urbanisation (Hooghe and Botterman, 2012;Dury et al., 2016;Southby and South, 2016) may contribute to variations in voluntary work. ...
Although volunteering is considered a good strategy for successful ageing, not many older adults are engaged in voluntary work and those who are do so mainly sporadically. This study focuses on time invested in volunteering rather than on doing voluntary work or not, as is often done in studies so far. By combining the theory of resources for volunteering with a functional and structural approach to volunteering, this cross-sectional study seeks to shed light on a wide range of factors associated with the intensity of volunteering. The study is based on a sample of 1,599 volunteers aged 50 and older participating in the Norwegian study on Life Course, Ageing and Generation Study (NorLAG). The survey includes, among others, detailed information about demographics and time invested in voluntary work and questions about attitudes, motivations, structural and other potential barriers to volunteering. Multivariate linear regression analyses indicate that a religious attitude is associated with elevated hours spent on voluntary work, while co-habitation is associated with a decreased engagement in voluntary work. In addition, people who are motivated to volunteer because they find it interesting and because volunteering allows them to use their competence spend more time volunteering. Human capital, i.e. education , income and subjective health, are not associated with the number of hours invested in voluntary work. The likelihood of contributing more volunteering hours of older men is 17.5 per cent higher than that of older women. We found no indication of a relation between work status, functional limitations, urbanisation or ethnicity and voluntary work engagement. Policies aiming to increase time investment of volunteers should strive for an optimal fit between the nature of the voluntary work and the interests and skills of the volunteers. In designing interventions to stimulate higher engagement in voluntary work, one should further promote strategies for flexible time commitment.
... Lifecourse theory has also been applied in ageing and migration studies to interrogate the causes and effects of changes resulting from the economic, social, and cultural contexts of people's later lives. For instance, Ferrer et al. (2017) utilized an intersectional lifecourse perspective to examine the connections between structural inequalities and lived experiences of ageing among older migrants in Canada, highlighting the intersectional lifecourse perspective that can help nuance the connection of personal, relational, and structural process that various groups of older adults undergo in late life and across the lifecourse. Other research features the negative impact of transnational mobility on migrants' lifecourse transitions into older age, where different socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional contexts and limited knowledge and skills for social integration and adaptation conspire to reduce older migrants' access to appropriate health and social care services (Koehn et al., 2013;Rao et al., 2006). ...
Lifecourse transitions from adulthood into older age are particularly complex for transnationalmigrants, bringing additional challenges and opportunities. Adding to the growing literature on ageing and migration, this article illustrates the ways ICTs facilitate the transnational lifecourse transitions of Vietnamese migrant grandparents in Australia through lifecourse digital learning. Research findings highlight the crucial role that digital citizenship plays in supporting migrant grandparents’ adaptation to increasingly mobile lives through practices of digital kinning and digital homing. These practices include using technological tools to maintain social support networks, exchange transnational caregiving, tackle language, navigation, and social integration barriers, and consume culturally relevant media, all of which support migrant identities and belongings. Findings confirm the importance of ICTs in promoting lifecourse digital learning for older migrants who are often stereotyped for their poor learning capacities and ability to adapt to new living arrangements because of their older age.
... Public datasets allow and invite secondary inquiry to clarify these patterns, but giving them context will require a theoretical foundation that is both sensitive to the variety of care dyads and recognizes their origins in broader hegemony. Fortunately, studies are calling for more intersectional perspectives in health and aging research (Evans 2019;Ferrer et al. 2017;Gkiouleka et al. 2018;Hankivsky 2012;Richardson & Brown 2016). ...
In the coming decades, there may not be enough professional caregivers to meet the needs of elderly and disabled persons; family and friends will take on more informal care roles than ever before, with great social impact, yet the social literature lacks consistency and breadth. This exploratory, quantitative study organizes the disparate social literature on caregiving and dementia care and suggests a critical theoretical framework to interpret social factors more fully. Utilizing the Caregiving in the U.S. dataset from 2015, three hypotheses test this framework for a dementia care population to identify variable combinations that exert outsized influence on care outcomes. Findings confirm two hypotheses: people of color tend to develop dementia far earlier than whites and persons who are marginalized in multiple ways tend to perform more activities of daily living; these findings demonstrate a role for intersectionality and queer subjectivity in dementia care analyses and interpretation.
... 45 An intersectionality perspective argues that older adults in recovery face "multiple and interlocking systems of domination" that share and structure their lives and that their marginalization is compounded by the mental health, physical health, and social challenges of AUD. 46 ...
Objective:
The population of older adults suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD) is increasing worldwide. Recovery from AUD among older adults is a challenging process which can lead to amelioration in these individuals' physical, mental, familial and social domains. However, little is known about the life experiences of older adults who have recovered from AUD.
Method:
A qualitative-naturalistic approach was implemented. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 older adults, age 60 +, who had recovered from AUD for periods ranging from 1 to 9 years.
Results:
Three main categories emerged from the content analysis: a) Regrets, self-forgiveness and a desire to remedy past wrongs; b) successful aging and eagerness to live; c) enduring challenges. These categories reflect the complex and multidimensional experiences of older adults who have recovered from AUD.
Conclusion:
Older adults who recover from AUD report experiencing successful aging. They are willing to engage in new ventures in late life, live actively and age healthfully. However, despite their positive outlook, older adults recovering from AUD are a vulnerable population, especially when they experience marginalization as post-AUD older adults. This underscores the need to reach out to this population and the host of challenges they face to provide supportive treatments and interventions from interdisciplinary professionals who can guide their recovery from AUD and help them flourish in late life.
... Intersectionality theory teaches us that oppressive structures, practices and policies are designed to obfuscate the power relations that shape daily interactions between institutional agents and marginalised communities (Brotman, 2003;Ferrer et al, 2017). As such, people who experience oppression in the everyday may not always be aware of or able to name the specific sources of their oppression, such as those policies and practices that shape everyday forms of oppression and discrimination (Smith, 1995). ...
Community accountability is a model through which to redress anti-Black racism in health care and to create community-based participatory research about the health of Black Canadians. This article provides a case example of a study undertaken by a Black community collective in Quebec made up of researchers, activists, service providers, business leaders and their allies who sought community accountability in making visible the impact of COVID-19 on local Black communities. The principles articulated within the Black emancipatory action research approach (Akom, 2011) are used to ground an analysis of our research-activist process in order to illuminate how knowledge gained through the collection of data can be used to help inform Black communities about the realities, needs and concerns of their members, to advocate for rights and entitlements, and to work towards community accountability in research that empowers Black communities, both in Quebec and elsewhere.
... And much less if it's been a [female] widow; that's somewhat sexist, but it's kind of the case with us. We serve many more women than men in the program who have not been able to do even what was done previously [in repairs]… Comments like those from Rian and Blair reflect the intersectional intricacies involved in HCBS programming coordination for diverse older adults, dynamics that have received only limited attention in the literature (Ferrer, Grenier, Brotman, & Koehn, 2017;Hooyman & Gupta, 2017). These comments further illustrate downstream challenges following the identification of needs for diverse clients, while highlighting the centrality of providers in bridging these gaps, a dynamic contextualized in the following section. ...
As the overall U.S. population grows older and increasingly diverse, greater focus is needed on the various Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), such as home health care, case management, meal delivery and preparation, and personal care, required to address the unique social and medical complexities of diverse older adults. Presently, however, there has been limited research on needs and broader dynamics associated with HCBS facilitation in this population. To address this gap, we sought to contextualize practices and barriers to care coordination for diverse homebound older adults, conducting semi-structured interviews with 41 providers of HCBS, including older adult care coordinators, in-home care workers, and physicians in greater Chicago, Illinois. Common care coordination practices included fluid processes related to engendering racial concordance in care, facilitating linguistic adaptations, and navigating relationships with clients' families. However, in certain circumstances, these practices are hindered. For example, broad client-level challenges included racialized dynamics of distrust and limited health literacy, and organizations cited ongoing obstacles recruiting and retaining diverse staff and finding HCBS providers to service low-income, minority communities often burdened by high crime rates. Continued efforts need to be made to better understand the HCBS needs of diverse homebound older adults and the associated challenges of providing culturally humble programming to this population.
... El análisis desde una perspectiva interseccional del curso de vida (Ferrer, 2017), entrega herramientas para comprender como las experiencias de vida cotidiana en pandemia y el impacto de las medidas implementadas, se insertan en una serie de relaciones entre instituciones sociales (familia, trabajo, ocio, entre otros), procesos políticos socio-históricos, roles y normas de género establecidas socialmente. ...
COVID-19 pandemic and the health crisis have highlighted and accentuated certain socioeconomic, age and gender inequalities in Chile. In this qualitative article, we ask ourselves about the transformations and diverse practices developed by two groups of different ages women in response to the policies and measures adopted in Chile during the COVID-19 pandemic. From a qualitative approach, we worked with semi-structured interviews with working mothers and older women and carried out an analysis guided by grounded theory. The results show that COVID-19 measures produced several disruptions in the daily lives of both groups, especially in their routines, use of space and time; the reconfiguration and reduction of their social and support networks to cope with the crisis, and bodily and emotional effects caused by the overload of various reproductive, care and productive tasks. We conclude that women themselves generated diverse strategies to confront the crisis experienced in the pandemic, without any action by the State to address gender and age inequalities.
... Por tanto, la lente del curso de la vida nos obliga a adoptar una visión dinámica de las intersecciones en lugar de una visión estática (Arber y Evandrou, 1993). Ilyan Ferrer et al. (2017) argumentan que para realizar un análisis interseccional de las desigualdades de la salud desde una perspectiva del curso de vida, es necesario considerar al menos cuatro elementos: 1) eventos de la vida, tiempo y fuerzas estructurales; 2) vidas locales y globalmente vinculadas; 3) identidades y categorías de diferencia; 4) agencia (dominación y resistencia). Estos autores también se pronuncian a favor de examinar las intersecciones entre los acontecimientos de la vida, las transiciones, las trayectorias y los sistemas de dominación a lo largo del curso de vida. ...
La discusión sobre los grupos que enfrentan situaciones de vulnerabilidad por las condiciones de desigualdad múltiple y acumulada en la sociedad ha aumentado en los últimos años. En especial, se ha insertado en la discusión el concepto de interseccionalidad y curso de vida (Holman y Walker, 2020; Ferraro y Shippee, 2009; Calasanti y Slevin, 2001). En México, durante las últimas décadas, muchos grupos de la población han experimentado discriminación y desigualdad, formas de violencia que se han normalizado y propiciado condiciones de vida adversas para alcanzar una calidad de vida y esperanzas de vida saludable. Esto se ha observado en las condiciones y el acceso a la salud de las personas por su condición étnica, género, edad, clase social e identidad de género (Montes de Oca y Gutiérrez Cuéllar, 2018).
... Just as positive early encounters can facilitate access to aged care later in life, negative experiences of racism and discrimination can hinder it (Ferrer et al., 2017). In the present study, no interviewees mentioned racism when asked about negative experiences with aged-care providers. ...
The literature on older migrants often focuses on identifying the characteristics of ethnic groups that constitute ‘barriers’ for members of these populations to access care. This paper offers an alternative conceptualisation of access to care, by combining relational approaches to place and the notion of super-diversity. From this perspective, ‘access to care’ is perceived as an outcome of an individual's embeddedness in relationships of care in urban places. The objective of the study is to identify relationships of care that facilitate access to aged care for older first-generation migrants. Thirty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with older migrants who were residents of Nijmegen or The Hague, The Netherlands. All interviewees had accessed home care, home aid and/or day care. Both relationships with minority-specific services and informal relationships of care, particularly those within local minority communities, were found to facilitate access to aged care. Past experiences with health and social care were also found to influence current relationships with formal care providers. This study, therefore, suggests that policy makers and care organisations should build long-term positive relationships with new and incoming migrant groups. In addition, it argues that policy makers and care providers should identify locally relevant shared migration-related (rather than ethnic) identities around which communities can be mobilised and targeted with appropriate services.
... Marier et al invitent à ne plus penser « les personnes âgées comme un groupe ou une catégorie à part mais [à] considérer le vieillissement et la vieillesse comme s'inscrivant dans la continuité d'un parcours de vie, à une intersection spécifique de positionnements sociaux impliquant un cumul d'avantages et de désavantages, ainsi qu'un entrecroisement spécifique d'oppressions à un âge avancé (Ferrer et al, 2017), nécessitant des politiques, interventions et services adaptés à cette diversité de situations et d'expériences » (2017 :6). Les vie jouent un rôle essentiel dans la manière dont la personne vieillit. ...
En posant un regard scientifique sur le vécu quotidien d’une population souvent négligée en sciences sociales et dans le débat public, la thèse vise à nourrir la réflexion sur l’inclusion dans la ville des personnes en fragilité psychique vieillissantes. L’objectif est d’interroger le rapport qu’elles entretiennent avec la ville, à travers l’étude de leurs géographies quotidiennes. Peuvent-elles pratiquer et s’approprier la ville comme elles le voudraient ? Trouvent-elles une place qui leur convient en tant qu’habitantes ? La recherche consiste en une étude qualitative des espaces de vie de 14 personnes en fragilité psychique vieillissantes (+50 ans) vivant dans une petite ville française ou dans les villages alentour. Ces personnes sont aussi adhérentes d’un Groupe d’Entraide Mutuelle (GEM), un dispositif d’entraide entre pairs organisé sous forme associative. La collecte des données s’appuie sur plusieurs mois d’observation participante au sein du GEM et sur deux séries d’entretiens (dont l’une avec réalisation d’une carte mentale) auprès des participants. L’analyse montre la multitude de facteurs contraignant les pratiques des participants, en particulier au regard de leur vie sociale, des loisirs et du logement. Les participants évoquent un sentiment mitigé d’appropriation des espaces, avec des géographies quotidiennes marquées par une alternance constante entre prises et manques de prises. L’analyse met aussi en lumière le statut particulier du GEM au sein de leurs espaces de vie. Celui-ci offre un espace-ressource dans la ville que les participants peuvent s’approprier. Ce dispositif, ouvert sur la ville, leur permet également de profiter de lieux où ils n’iraient pas seuls ou bien d’eux-mêmes, contribuant ainsi à diversifier et à accroître le périmètre des espaces de vie. L’analyse souligne la manière dont les adhérents se sont saisis collectivement de leur GEM pour agir eux-mêmes sur la ville et la rendre davantage inclusive.
This article develops an innovative approach to intersectional biographical interviewing for researchers working with highly diverse, partly unknown populations and focusing on 'systems' of intersecting inequality, rather than 'groups' or 'lists' of intersections. Drawing on fieldwork with Black and Muslim Italian migrants with different class backgrounds, the article discusses theoretical synergy as a tool to redraw analytical boundaries vis-à-vis emergent knowledge of intersecting inequalities, and to connect different analytical dimensions in biographical analysis. Moreover, I introduce 'field-specific questions' as a technique that captures the contextual effects of intersecting inequalities, minimising the risk of essentialising minority ethnic participants.
Objectives:
Research on associations between early life adversity (ELA) and later life cognition has yielded mixed results and generally have not considered how broader societal systems of stratification potentially influence associations. The current study addresses this gap by exploring if racialized identity and childhood socioeconomic status (cSES) moderate associations between ELA exposure and later life cognition.
Methods:
Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (Waves 2010-2018), we used growth curve modeling to examine if the confluence of ELA, cSES, and racialized identity is associated with cognition.
Results:
Among White participants, greater exposure to ELA was associated with poorer baseline cognitive functioning, and higher cSES buffered against this association. Among Black participants, exposure to ELA was not associated with baseline cognitive functioning, regardless of cSES. We did not find evidence of any associations between main predictors nor their interactions with change in cognition over time.
Conclusions:
This study provides evidence that associations between ELA and later life cognition is contingent upon multiple social positions in the United States. These findings support the importance of integrating insights on intersecting social positions within life-course-oriented efforts to reduce racialized cognitive disparities.
Objectives:
Immigrants to Canada tend to have a lower incidence of diagnosed depression than non-immigrants. One theory suggests that this "healthy immigrant effect (HIE)" is due to positive selection. Another school of thought argues that the medical underuse of immigrants may be the underlying reason. This unclear "immigrant paradox" is further confounded by the intersecting race-migration nexus.
Methods:
This population-based study analyzed data of participants (n=28,951, age ≥45) from the Canadian Community Health Survey (2015-2018). Multivariable logistic regression was employed to examine associations between race-migration nexus and mental health outcomes, including depressive symptoms (PHQ-9 score ≥10).
Results:
Compared to Canadian-born (CB) Whites, immigrants, regardless of race, were less likely to receive a mood/anxiety disorder diagnosis (M/A-Dx) by health providers in their lifetime; Racialized immigrants were mentally disadvantaged with increased odds of undiagnosed depression (OR=1.76, 99%CI: 1.40-2.20); whereas White immigrants were mentally healthier with decreased odds of PHQ depression and poor self-rated mental health. Among sub-population without a previous M/A-Dx (N=25,366), racialized immigrants had increased odds of PHQ depression (OR=1.45, 99%CI: 1.15-1.82) and unrecognized depression (OR=1.47, 99%CI: 1.08-2.00) than CB Whites. Other risk factors for undiagnosed depression include the lack of regular care providers, emergency room as the usual source of care and being home renters.
Discussion:
Despite Canadian universal health coverage, the burden of undiagnosed depression disproportionately affects racialized (but not White) immigrants in mid-to-late life. Contingent on race-migration nexus, the HIE in mental health may be attributable to the under-detection by health professionals and under-recognition by racialized immigrants. A paradigm shift is needed to estimate late-life depression for medically underserved populations.
Both loneliness and intersectionality have become well established areas of academic research since the 1970s and 1980s. Nevertheless, only very recently some meaningful connections were made between the two, although researchers have paid attention to the interactive effects of two or more socio-demographic attributes on loneliness. For intersectionality, much of academic research is invested in establishing it as a theoretical approach in tackling social injustice, whilst how it should be studied empirically remains a major challenge. In contrast, research on loneliness has been predominantly empirical, and the small number of studies on loneliness from the intersectional perspective have adopted different research methodologies. This paper proposes and illustrates an approach loyal to the fundamental principles of intersectionality and simple to conduct in empirical investigations at the same time. First, it focuses exclusively on intersectional cross-classifications rather than both the main and the interactional effects; second, it demands a rationale of starting from one attribute and then moving on to include an additional attribute at a time; third, it examines the intersectional cross-classifications and their relationships with the interested outcome systematically without transforming the data in set memberships. The approach is illustrated with analyses of the data collected in Great Britain in the seventh round (2014/15) of European Social Survey. Young people (under 30) of ethnic minority and born inside Great Britain suffered from the highest percentage of frequent loneliness (15%), whilst their counterparts born outside the country enjoyed the lowest rate. Among the middle-aged, ethnicity determined how vulnerable they were to frequent loneliness. For older people (60+) born outside Great Britain, regardless of ethnicity, the percentage of frequent loneliness was 10%.
The scholarship on immigrant integration has tended to focus on the early period of settlement and to position immigrants as responsible for adapting to the labour market and the values and practices of the mainstream society in the host country. Normative individualised perspectives have neglected the role of other actors, the ongoing nature of integration, and the need for support to sustain it over time. This chapter addresses often neglected organising processes involved in the maintenance of immigrants’ integration during later life when they need to interact with and navigate through organisational care systems and gain assistance to ensure continued connection with a range of communities in the host society. Focusing on an Australian case study, the chapter outlines how multicultural policy has shaped the organisation of immigrant integration since the 1970s, before showing how government policies, funding, and practices operate in ways that homogenise older immigrants and shape how migrant support organisations work to facilitate and sustain continued integration. By applying the life course perspective to analyse interviews with organisational representatives who manage and support activities for older immigrants living at home, we show that integration is a multifaceted, dynamic process involving immigrants, society, and the state, and not short-term, linear, or unidirectional.KeywordsLife courseOlder immigrantsAgeing
This article argues that a tailored version of the qualitative embedded case study method can be used to build strong conceptual and inclusive insights from qualitative research with older people, and, in doing so, advance theoretical scholarship in social and critical gerontology. Gerontology has often been described as "data-rich and theory-poor" (Birren & Bengtson, 1988). It is a field which draws heavily on post-positivist traditions of quantitative research and notions of prediction, generalization, and statistical significance. While critical qualitative approaches have gained ground through interdisciplinary scholarship in the social sciences and humanities, few attempts have been made to articulate the relationship between research questions designed to understand older people's experiences and concept- or theory-building in gerontology. This piece makes a case for engaging with the theoretical/methodological interface by drawing on an evolving approach entitled the qualitative embedded case study, as it was used in three qualitative studies on the concepts of frailty, (im)mobility, and precarity. It suggests this is an evolving approach with the potential to develop conceptually sound, meaningful research from older people's experiences, including diverse, underrepresented, and marginalized groups, and to draw on these insights to direct change.
Critical and feminist ageing scholarship has drawn attention to how dominant discourses of ageing negatively impact older women's identities and social lives. While research intersecting migration and ageing has broadly focused on older immigrants' settlement experiences, very little is known about the discursive influences over older immigrant women's sense of agency and social relations. To address this knowledge gap, this study explores the subjectivity-formations of older South Asian Muslim women engaged in transnational migration. Narrative and discourse analysis principles were used to conduct and analyse life story-based interviews with 15 South Asian Muslim older women who recently migrated to Toronto, Canada. Findings indicate that participant subjectivity-formations are shaped by: (a) discourses of ageing; (b) socio-cultural–religious discourses; and (c) discourses of transnational migration. In response, participants engaged in dynamic strategies including conforming, negotiating, creating alternative narratives and/or resisting these discourses to organise their lives. These findings reinforce the continued need to trace the governmentality of structural conditions over ageing migrant women's lives and their responsive strategies to manage these impacts.
Attempting to address health disparities via a single analytical category (e.g., gender or race) overlooks the complex ways multiple social categories and institutions intersect to create health disparity. Grounded in the intersectional life course perspective, this study examines how lived experiences of gender, race, class, and interlocking systems of oppression shape Black women's smoking trajectories. Black women exhibit a unique smoking trajectory compared to others: a later onset of smoking but an increased likelihood of smoking over the life course. Yet, despite this distinctive smoking trajectory and disproportionately higher smoking-related health issues among Black smokers, few qualitative studies investigate their smoking patterns. This qualitative research fills the gap by taking an intersectional life course perspective and grounded theory. Drawing upon 40 in-depth interviews with socioeconomically disadvantaged Black women who were current and former smokers, this study identifies smoking trajectories among the study participants: early onset of experimental smoking, intermittent smoking in adolescence, and daily smoking in young adulthood. Additionally, data indicates three life-course pathways through which the transition from intermittent to daily smoking occurs: (a) social norms surrounding smoking, (b) financial (in)dependence, and (c) gendered, raced, and classed stressors. These pathways are intertwined and can co-occur. Findings suggest considering diverse life-course patterns of smoking across the intersection of gender, race, class, and socio-geographical contexts in future research and policies.
Over the past 40 years, positive ageing discourses that speak to an expectation of continued productivity have gained prominence within research and policy. Such discourses have been critiqued as placing disproportionate value on the extension of older adults' working lives, while obscuring other valuable forms of work performed by older adults. Despite the emergence of theoretical conversations about the expansion of conceptions of work, few studies have adopted an explicit focus on the work performed by older adults within their neighbourhoods. Informed by conceptions of work positioned at the intersection of critical gerontology and critical feminism, we drew upon qualitative data from a larger ethnographic study, generated from 17 participants aged 65 and older, to examine: (a) the various forms and contributions of unpaid work that older adults carry out at the neighbourhood level, and (b) the ways in which older adults' representations of this work relate to dominant notions of productivity. Specifically, each participant engaged in three types of qualitative interviews, including additional spatial and visual data generation: (a) completing a narrative interview; (b) carrying a small Global Positioning System (GPS) device to automatically log locations, completing an activity diary and a follow-up interview; and (c) participating in a go-along interview or a photo elicitation interview. Our findings highlight a range of unpaid work performed by participants in their neighbourhood, including formal volunteering, informal caring and informal civic participation. Although these forms of work were, at times, discussed by participants as enabling social inclusion, significant tensions arose from the general lack of discursive and social value assigned to them. In particular, participants described being subject to overwhelming expectations placed on older adults, and women in particular, to carry out this work, with little recognition or acknowledgement of their contributions to the neighbourhood. Taken together, our findings suggest the need not only to diversify understandings of the forms of work perceived as aligning with productive contributions to society in older age, but also to attend to the invisible work performed by older adults within their neighbourhoods. Additionally, we propose a variety of ways organisations and communities that benefit from older adults' unpaid labour may enhance accessibility, thereby reducing the work done by older adults to negotiate tensions between ableist expectations for productivity and their ageing bodies.
Studies that assess the association between race and health have focused intently on the cumulative impact of continuous exposure to racism over an extended period. While these studies have contributed significantly to the general understanding of the life experiences and health status of racialized people, few studies have explicitly bridged the experiences of aging with gender and the wide structural barriers and social factors that have shaped the lives of racialized older women. This study aimed to investigate the origins of health inequities to highlight factors that intersect to affect the health and wellbeing of older Black women across their life course. Descriptive phenomenology was used to describe older Black women's health and wellbeing, and factors that impact their health across their life course. Criteria-based sampling was used to recruit study participants (n = 27). To be eligible women needed to be 55 years or older, speak English, self-identify as a Black female, and live in the Greater Toronto Area. Data analysis was guided by phenomenology. Themes identified demonstrated that participants' health and wellbeing were influenced by gender bias, racism, abuse, and retirement later in life. Participants reported having poor mental health during childhood and adulthood due to anxiety and depression. Other chronic illnesses reported included hypertension, diabetes, and cancer. Qualitative methods provided details regarding events and exposures that illuminate pathways through which health inequities emerge across the life course.
In the past 20 years, older adults’ civic participation has received considerable attention. Current literature shows that rates of voting and volunteering have been consistently lower among African Americans and Latinx older adults compared to White older adults. However, little research has explored civic participation in the context of historical structures of inequality that influence how Black and Latinx populations participate in civic life. I draw from an intersectional life course perspective and phenomenological methods to examine experiences of civic participation through participants’ lens. Findings draw our attention to how race/racism and age/ageism shape how, where, and with whom participants participate. Findings demonstrate how civic participation is embedded within systems of inequality that inform individual behavior as well as available opportunities for engagement. These findings call attention to the need to re-conceptualize and support civic participation that centers the experiences of historically ethnoracially oppressed populations.
This chapter tells the story of Josie, a gender-non-conforming, queer woman living with chronic illness and disability. A feminist narrative methodology elicits Josie’s description of her experiences of school, health care and the ways in which she negotiates sexual and gender identity and expression in the context of the many challenges she experiences in living with pain and disability. We document critical moments and turning points in her lived experience of disability, sexuality and gender, and examine how intersecting identities both shape and are shaped by context and experiences of the body as both complex and fluid. Josie’s rich account embodies multiple marginalized and intersecting social locations, and offers important insights on how to engage in a social work practice informed by a feminist narrative approach, particularly the intersecting social locations of disability and queer identities. An intersectional lifeline and feminist narrative interviewing offer tools for the development of critical, transformative research and practice in social work.
Across the world, the experiences of women in later life vary enormously, not only along intersectional lines, but also due to cumulative (dis)advantages over an individual’s life course. The current study explores how early-life structural (dis)advantages experienced by older African women (particularly experiences related to economic adversity and the social disadvantages that often accompany it) shape their later life experiences and agency. The life stories used in this paper emerged from a larger qualitative study of aging and gender identities in Tanzania based on fifteen (15) in-depth interviews and ten (10) focus group discussions with women 60 to 82 years old. Analyzing the data from an intersectional perspective and life course approach demonstrated that older women’s situations area result of the complex interaction of various structural and individual factors, and that timing is crucial for exercising agency. The findings also revealed that as a result of gender norms, the majority of older Tanzanian women were vulnerable to discrimination, poverty, and violence. The norms that promote gender discrimination also limit women’s agency and social functioning subject to the constraints imposed. To help protect older women against discrimination and violence, gender-sensitive policies, social programs and legal reforms are critical for speed up the pace of change and foster permanent shifts in harmful gender norms so that aging experiences are no longer all about being a woman.
This paper contributes to the growing body of work on precarious labor, immigration, and social gerontology by examining the racialization of precarious employment across the life course. In particular, the authors examine the impact of precarious employment and discrimination among racialized older immigrants in Canada. Racialized older immigrants are more likely to be disadvantaged by the effects of lifelong intersections of economic and social discrimination rooted in racialization, gender, ageism, and socio-economic status. Drawing from a narrative-photovoice project that focused on the life stories of older immigrants living in Quebec and British Columbia, this paper presents the in-depth stories and photographs of four participants to highlight how intersections of race, gender, age, immigration status, and ability shape and structure experiences of aging, labor market participation and caregiving relationships.
In this chapter, the authors explore what more-than-human approaches can contribute to development research, teaching and practice. The authors believe that this work is timely as development studies and practice have yet to engage with more-than-human insights in any significant way. They first develop the concept of more-than-human development before analysing the challenges it poses to how we conceptualize and approach core development concerns such as community and empowerment. They then reflect on the ramifications of the concept for practice and policy, before finally exploring how to incorporate more-than-human approaches into pedagogy.
The PhD dissertation explored: 1) a multilayered image of the dementia experience and dementia care provision among labor migrant families, and 2) methodological pathways to contribute to more ethical research involving this population. The findings of this dissertation are based on five studies.
The findings show that the experience of dementia and the dementia care trajectory is defined by the intersectional social position of older labor migrants and their families, inviting us to move beyond the binary division between migrants and non-migrants with “having a different culture” as the division line. This while recognizing the impact of having a migration background, a non-normative culture and
religion on care provision. The current dementia care is provided by a complex and dynamic transnational network of informal and formal caregivers that also includes alternative care forms.
This picture of care provision is sought by family caregivers as an answer to their unmet care needs: A “complexity-sensitive person-centered responsive care” considers the multilayered identity of the older migrant with dementia. This reflects individual and structural professional care gaps to provide inclusive dementia care. Understanding this complexity can advance the provision of better dementia care for older migrants with dementia. Therefore, a new conceptual lens to examine dementia care for a diverse population is suggested.
This dissertation also contributes to the debate on how to conduct ethical research on dementia among older migrants by moving away from the culturalist frame where it is currently embedded with biased and narrow assumptions about this population as a result. This dissertation suggests therefore a further exploration of decolonial frameworks as compass for an ethical gerontological research praxis: a praxis that engages us into a process of awareness of and resistance to the historically rooted coloniality of mind in our own knowledge production.
The Gerontological Society of America 2021 Annual Scientific Meeting theme, Disruption to Transformation: Aging in the “New Normal,” reflects disruptions from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, heightened sensitivity and demands for equity and justice for marginalized populations, and expanded efforts to improve infrastructure for persons of all ages and abilities. Early in the pandemic, the highest infection and death rates were among older adults (especially those ages 80+) who were in congregate care and/or had comorbidities, accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 deaths (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2021a). By March 2021, the age 65+ infection rate was about 50% lower than the under-65 rate (CDC, 2021a), indicating the positive impact of priority vaccinations for older Americans. Further, American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), Black/African American, and Hispanic populations experienced disproportionately greater COVID-19 mortality (CDC, 2021b). Have greater COVID-19 vulnerability of older persons and the pandemic’s consequences led to a transformation and a “new normal,” or flashed a spotlight on persisting disparities? It is no surprise that the oldest, least healthy, lowest income, institutionalized, and racial/ethnic minority subgroups were at highest risk for COVID-19 infection and death, and the pandemic only magnified the substantial disadvantages they have always faced.
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/CONSEIL_INTERC_FR/MEDIA/DOCUMENTS/PAIR-MEP-FR-21-06-28.PDF?fbclid=IwAR3JxxATa8fQjKNahznVjovgzpH9t-74H0oYdOau-KHy2f95z10GsDfZCC8
This study examines how the intersecting consequences of race-ethnicity, gender, socioeconomics status (SES), and age influence health inequality. We draw on multiple-hierarchy stratification and life course perspectives to address two main research questions. First, does racial-ethnic stratification of health vary by gender and/or SES? More specifically, are the joint health consequences of racial-ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic stratification additive or multiplicative? Second, does this combined inequality in health decrease, remain stable, or increase between middle and late life? We use panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 12,976) to investigate between- and within-group differences in in self-rated health among whites, blacks, and Mexican Americans. Findings indicate that the effects of racial-ethnic, gender, and SES stratification are interactive, resulting in the greatest racial-ethnic inequalities in health among women and those with higher levels of SES. Furthermore, racial-ethnic/gender/SES inequalities in health tend to decline with age. These results are broadly consistent with intersectionality and aging-as-leveler hypotheses.
This paper reflects on the understanding of contemporary forms of identity construction within the fields of ethnicity, migration and transnational population movements. It casts a critical eye on new forms of identity hailed by the related notions of diaspora, hybridity and cosmopolitanism. The paper also reflects on the concept of intersectionality which provides a more integrated analysis of identity formation by arguing for the inter-connections between social divisions, such as those of gender, ethnicity and class. The paper argues that the concept 'translocational positionality' (see Anthias) is a useful means of addressing some of the difficulties identified within these approaches. This concept addresses issues of identity in terms of locations which are not fixed but are context, meaning and time related and which therefore involve shifts and contradictions. It thereby provides an intersectional framing for the understanding of belonging. As an intersectional frame it moves away from the idea of given 'groups' or 'categories' of gender, ethnicity and class, which then intersect (a particular concern of some intersectionality frameworks), and instead pays much more attention to social locations and processes which are broader than those signalled by this.
This article assesses the economic precariousness faced by Filipina live-in caregivers during and after the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). Using survey data and focus group interviews, we argue that live-in caregivers’ unique pathway to immigration lead them to face economic challenges that are distinct from other immigrants. Not only do live-in caregivers face onerous employment conditions under the LCP, they have difficulties transitioning into the Canadian labour market because they face the following challenges: being stigmatized when entering the Canadian labour market, having to take costly educational upgrading courses while simultaneously working in ‘survival’ jobs, and having to be their families’ sole breadwinners. Despite these structural barriers, however, the live-in caregivers in our study strove to transition into Canadian society through their resilience and hard work. Regardless of the economic challenges that they themselves faced during and after the LCP, most saw their future in Canada and felt that coming to the country was “worth it.”
Résumé:
Cet article évalue la précarité économique que connaît les aides familiaux résidants philippines pendant et après le Programme des aides familiaux résidants (PAFR). En utilisant les données d'enquête et des entrevues de groupes de discussion, nous soutenons que la voie particulière réservée aux aidants à l'immigration comporte des défis économiques qui sont distincts de ceux des autres immigrants. Non seulement les aides familiaux résidants sont-elles confrontées à des conditions d'emploi rigoureux sous le PAFR, mais leur transition vers le marché du travail canadien est difficile à plusieurs égards: elles sont stigmatisés en entrant dans le marché du travail canadien, elles doivent prendre des cours coûteux de perfectionnement tout en travaillant dans des emplois «de survie», et elles sont souvent seuls soutiens de leurs familles. En dépit de ces obstacles structurels, les aides familiaux résidants dans notre étude se sont efforcés de faire la transition à la société canadienne grâce à leur résilience et le travail acharné. Quels que soient les défis économiques qu'elles rencontrent pendant et après le PAFR, la plupart d'entre elles voient leur avenir au Canada et estiment que venir au pays « en a valu la peine. »
This article contributes to the growing debate on intersectionality by proposing a theoretical framing which attends to different levels of analysis in terms of what is being referred to (social categories or concrete social relations); societal arenas of investigation; and historicity (processes and outcomes). It discusses questions of social ontology, categories, groupings and more concrete social relations relating to boundaries and hierarchies in social life. The article presents a particular analytical sensitivity which attends to the dialogical nature of social relations, the centrality of power and social hierarchy, and the importance of locating these within spatial and temporal contexts.
Research on subjective experiences of dementia has paid scant attention to social location, due to fairly homogeneous samples and an inattention to socio-cultural diversity in data analysis. This article addresses this gap by presenting findings from a grounded theory study of the relationships between the experiences of older people with dementia and the intersections of ‘race’, ethnicity, class, and gender. Data generation occurred through a series of interviews, participant observation sessions, and focus groups with eight older people with dementia whose social locations varied from multiply marginalized to multiply privileged plus over 50 members of their social worlds. Their experiences of dementia were found to be varied, ranging from ‘not a big deal’ to ‘a nuisance’ to ‘hellish’, and to be related to their social locations. Negative views of life with dementia were not nearly as universal as past literature suggests and social location was found to mediate experiences of dementia.
This paper is an ethnographic exploration of a seldom-discussed ‘micro’ dimension of transnational studies, the practices of long-distance family relations and aged care. The importance of time as a key variable in transnational research is demonstrated through comparisons of the care exchanges of three cohorts of Italian migrants in Australia and their kin in Italy. A focus on ‘transnationalism from below’, the more quotidian and domestic features of transmigrant experience, highlights the importance of considering the role of homeland kin and communities in discussions of migration. The analysis of transnational care-giving practices illustrates that migrancy is sometimes triggered by the need to give or receive care rather than the more commonly assumed ‘rational’ economic motivations. Transnational lives are thus shaped by the ‘economies of kinship’, which develop across changing state (‘macro’), community (‘meso’) and family migration (‘micro’) histories, including, in particular, culturally constructed notions of ‘ideal’ family relations and obligations, as well as notions of ‘successful’ migration and ‘licence to leave’.
This article addresses the theoretical paradigm of intersectionality and interlocking oppressions, focusing on its evolution over time and place and application to the everyday lives of women. The objective is both to honor the roots of intersectional scholarship and to demonstrate the temporal and spatial nature of oppression and privilege. Theoretical concepts are illustrated by narratives from women who have crossed different sociocultural contexts and phases of the life course. This dialectical and self-reflexive intersectional analysis focuses not only on oppression but also on privilege and demonstrates that intersectionality and interlocking oppressions are time and context contingent, rather than fixed and ahistorical.
Reuniting immigrant families has been considered an important goal in Canadian policy (Citizen and Immigration Canada (CIC), 2006). When an elderly relative is sponsored under the Family Class immigration category, the sponsor makes an unconditional undertaking of support for a period of ten years to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. This is a longer period than for any other Family Class group. In addition to their legal status as dependents, sponsored seniors–the majority from India and China–are left financially and socially vulnerable by a constellation of cultural, situational and structural factors. Based on case studies of the South Asian and Chinese immigrant populations by authors, Koehn and Hwang, and the legal expertise of author Spencer, we conclude that Canada’s laws and policies have an important effect on intergenerational tension, the senior’s status, social isolation, as well as the risk of abuse and neglect or domestic and workplace exploitation. These factors can influence access to essential services such as housing and health care services. While further evidence is needed, findings from preliminary studies indicate the need for policy-level revisions as well as other approaches to reducing the vulnerability of this significant subpopulation of ethnic minority seniors.
This paper uses an intersectionality theoretical lens to interrogate selected findings of a scoping review of published and grey literature on the health and health care access of ethnocultural minority older adults. Our focus was on Canada and countries with similar immigrant populations and health care systems. Approximately 3300 source documents were reviewed covering the period 1980-2010: 816 met the eligibility criteria; 183 were Canadian. Summarized findings were presented to groups of older adults and care providers for critical review and discussion. Here we discuss the extent to which the literature accounts for the complexity of categories such as culture and ethnicity, recognizes the compounding effects of multiple intersections of inequity that include social determinants of health as well as the specificities of immigration, and places the experience of those inequities within the context of systemic oppression. We found that Canada’s two largest immigrant groups— Chinese and South Asians—had the highest representation in Canadian literature but, even for these groups, many topics remain unexplored and the heterogeneity within them is inadequately captured. Some qualitative literature, particularly in the health promotion and cultural competency domains, essentializes culture at the expense of other determinants and barriers, whereas the quantitative literature suffers from oversimplification of variables and their effects often due to the absence of proportionally representative data that captures the complexity of experience in minority groups.
Europe is now home to a significant and diverse population of older international migrants. Social and demographic changes have forced the issue of social security in old age onto the European social policy agenda in the last decade. In spite of an increased interest in the financial well-being of older people, many retired international migrants who are legally resident in the European Union face structured disadvantages. Four linked factors are of particular importance in shaping the pension rights and levels of financial provision available to individual older migrants: migration history, socio-legal status, past relationship to the paid labour market, and location within a particular EU Member State. Building on a typology of older migrants, the paper outlines the ways in which policy at both the European Union and Member State levels serves to diminish rather than enhance the social security rights of certain older international migrants.
The ‘Barriers to Access to Care for Ethnic Minority Seniors’ (BACEMS) study in Vancouver, British Columbia, found that immigrant families torn between changing values and the economic realities that accompany immigration cannot always provide optimal care for their elders. Ethnic minority seniors further identified language barriers, immigration status, and limited awareness of the roles of the health authority and of specific service providers as barriers to health care. The configuration and delivery of health services, and health-care providers' limited knowledge of the seniors' needs and confounded these problems. To explore the barriers to access, the BACEMS study relied primarily on focus group data collected from ethnic minority seniors and their families and from health and multicultural service providers. The applicability of the recently developed model of ‘candidacy’, which emphasises the dynamic, multi-dimensional and contingent character of health-care access to ethnic minority seniors, was assessed. The candidacy framework increased sensitivity to ethnic minority seniors' issues and enabled organisation of the data into manageable conceptual units, which facilitated translation into recommendations for action, and revealed gaps that pose questions for future research. It has the potential to make Canadian research on the topic more co-ordinated. Also available at http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/articlerender.cgi?accid=PMC3693980 (open access)
Migrant workers from the Philippines are ubiquitous to global capitalism, with nearly 10 percent of the population employed in almost two hundred countries. In a visit to the United States in 2003, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo even referred to herself as not only the head of state but also “the CEO of a global Philippine enterprise of eight million Filipinos who live and work abroad.” The book investigates how and why the Philippine government transformed itself into what it calls a labor brokerage state, which actively prepares, mobilizes, and regulates its citizens for migrant work abroad. Filipino men and women fill a range of jobs around the globe, including domestic work, construction, and engineering, and they have even worked in the Middle East to support U.S. military operations. At the same time, the state redefines nationalism to normalize its citizens to migration while fostering their ties to the Philippines. Those who leave the country to work and send their wages to their families at home are treated as new national heroes. Drawing on ethnographic research of the Philippine government’s migration bureaucracy, interviews, and archival work, the book presents a new analysis of neoliberal globalization and its consequences for nation-state formation.
Transitions and the life course: Challenging the constructions of 'growing old' explores and challenges dominant interpretations of transitions as they relate to ageing and the life course. It takes a unique perspective that draws together ideas about late life as expressed in social policy and socio-cultural constructs of age with lived experience. The book is aimed at academics and students interested in social gerontology, policy studies in health and social care, and older people's accounts of experience.
This review explores historical changes in generational relations in American society as they affect adaptation to the later years of life. Following a life course perspective, the review examines changes in the timing of life transitions, in family relations, and in generational and kin assistance and their impact on support in old age. In doing so, it demonstrates the significance of a historical and life course approach to the understanding of generational relations over time. Dispelling prevailing myths about coresidence and generational assistance in the past, the review discusses the circumstances under which nuclear household arrangements were modified and explores patterns of assistance inside and outside the household. It links demographic changes in the timing of life course transitions with patterns of supports to aging parents in the context of changing reciprocities among kin. By comparing two cohorts of adult children in an American community in terms of their supports to aging parents, as well as their attitudes toward generational assistance, the review identifies historical changes in the relations between generations in the larger context of family relations and kin assistance.
Although women have long been members of the labour force, the proportion of domestic, caring, and community work they provide compared to men or the state has yet to decrease substantially. Beyond Caring Labour to Provisioning Work offers a powerful new framework for understanding women's work in a holistic sense, acknowledging both their responsibilities in supporting others as well as their employment duties. Beyond Caring Labour to Provisioning Work is based on a four-year, multi-site study of women who are members of contemporary community organizations. The authors reveal the complex ways in which these women define and value their own work, investigating what supports and constrains their individual and collective efforts. Calling on the state to assist more with citizens' provisioning responsibilities, Beyond Caring Labour to Provisioning Work provides an excellent basis for new discussions on equitable and sustainable public policies.
Series: Routledge Advances in Sociology This groundbreaking collection is the first to focus specifically on LGBT* people and dementia. It brings together original chapters from leading academics, practitioners and LGBT* individuals affected by dementia. Multidisciplinary and international in scope, it includes authors from the UK, USA, Canada and Australia and from a range of fields, including sociology, social work, psychology, health care and socio-legal studies. Taking an intersectional approach – i.e. considering the plurality of experiences and the multiple, interacting relational positions of everyday life – LGBT Individuals Living with Dementia addresses topics relating to concepts, practice and rights. Part One addresses theoretical and conceptual questions; Part Two discusses practical concerns in the delivery of health and social care provision to LGBT* people living with dementia; and Part Three explores socio-legal issues relating to LGBT* people living with dementia. This collection will appeal to policy makers, commissioners, practitioners, academics and students across a range of disciplines. With an ageing and increasingly diverse population, and growing numbers of people affected by dementia, this book will become essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the needs of, and providing appropriate services to, LGBT* people affected by dementia. Foreword by Murna Downs, Professor in Dementia Studies, School of Dementia Studies, University of Bradford, UK: 'This edited collection is a milestone in our field'. May 2016 | 272 pages | 2 B/W Illus Hb: 978-1-138-84069-0: £95.00 £76.00* Amazon Kindle Edition : £34.99 *Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or discount and only applies to books purchased directly via our website.
Relating closely to globalisation trends, the context for the chapter by Sandra Torres is the interconnection between international migration flows and the ways in which such migration is changing the demographics of ageing populations across the world and societies' ethnic composition. In examining contrasting approaches to exploring exclusion issues by social gerontologists and researchers who focus on international migration and ethnic relations, the chapter argues that the diversity of older migrants poses a challenge to social gerontology's theoretical, policy- and practice-oriented assumptions regarding who migrants are and what they need. While the 'migratory life-course' is associated with specific exclusionary risks, the mechanisms of social exclusion work differently according to when, why and where older migrants to western industrialised nations have come from. An ethnicity and race-aware take on social exclusion is shown to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions that well-designed policies and practices can reduce exclusion in later life.
The mission statements and recruitment campaigns for modern Canadian universities promote diverse and enlightened communities. Racism in the Canadian University questions this idea by examining the ways in which the institutional culture of the academy privileges Whiteness and Anglo-Eurocentric ways of knowing. Often denied and dismissed in practice as well as policy, the various forms of racism still persist in the academy. This collection, informed by critical theory, personal experience, and empirical research, scrutinizes both historical and contemporary manifestations of racism in Canadian academic institutions, finding in these communities a deep rift between how racism is imagined and how it is lived. With equal emphasis on scholarship and personal perspectives, Racism in the Canadian University is an important look at how racial minority faculty and students continue to engage in a daily struggle for safe, inclusive spaces in classrooms and among peers, colleagues, and administrators.
Using a feminist political economy approach, contributors document the impact of current socio-economic policies on states, markets, households, and communities. Relying on impressive empirical research, they argue that women bear the costs of and responsibility for care-giving and show that the theoretical framework provided by feminist analyses of social reproduction not only corrects the gender-blindness of most economic theories but suggests an alternative that places care-giving at its centre. In this illuminating study, they challenge feminist scholars to re-engage with materialism and political economy to engage with feminism.
Acknowledgments 1. Introduction to Critical Ethnography: Theory and Method Positionality and Shades of Ethnography Dialogue and the Other The Method and Theory Nexus Summary Warm-Ups Suggested Readings 2. Methods: "Do I Really Need a Method?" A Method ... or Deep Hanging-Out "Who Am I?" Starting Where You Are "Who Else Has Written About My Topic?" Being a Part of an Interpretive Community The Power of Purpose: Bracketing Your Subject Preparing for the Field: The Research Design and Lay Summary Interviewing and Field Techniques Formulating Questions Extra Tips for Formulating Questions Attributes of the Interviewer and Building Rapport Coding and Logging Data Warm-Ups Suggested Readings 3. Three Stories: Case Studies in Critical Ethnography Case One: Local Activism in West Africa Case Two: Secrets of Sexuality and Personal Narrative Case Three: Community Theatre Conflicts and Organization Warm-Ups Suggested Readings 4. Ethics Defining Ethics Critical Ethnography and the Ethics of Reason, the Greater Good, and the Other Maria Lugones: Contemporary Ethics, Ethnography, and Loving Perception Warm-Ups Suggested Readings 5. Methods and Ethics Codes of Ethics for Fieldwork Extending the Codes Warm-Ups Suggested Readings 6. Methods and Application: Three Case Studies in Ethical Dilemmas Case One: Local Activism in West Africa Case Two: Secrets of Sexuality and Personal Narrative Case Three: Community Theatre Conflicts and Organization Warm-Ups Suggested Readings 7. Performance Ethnography Foundational Concepts in Performance and Social Theory The Performance Interventions of Dwight Conquergood Staging Ethnography and the Performance of Possibilities Warm-Ups Suggested Readings 8. It's Time to Write: Writing as Performance Getting Started: In Search of the Muse The Anxiety of Writing: Wild Mind and Monkey Mind Writing as Performance and Performance as Writing Warm-Ups Suggested Readings 9. The Case Studies Case One: Staging Cultural Performance Case Two: Oral History and Performance Case Three: The Fieldwork of Social Drama and Communitas Warm-Ups Suggested Readings References Index About the Author
The globalisation of international migration has increased the ethnic diversity of most ageing populations across the Western world. This has implications for gerontological research, policy and practice, and puts our understandings of ethnicity to the test. This paper presents the different perspectives that inform ethnicity scholarship (the essentialist/primordial perspective, the structuralist/circumstantialist perspective and social constructionism) and suggests that the way in which we regard ethnicity has implications for how gerontological research is designed, how policies for old age are formulated and how gerontological practice is shaped. Through a review of contemporary gerontological research on ethnicity published in some of gerontology's main journals, the paper discusses some of the trends observed and concludes that most research seems to be informed by essentialism and structuralism. This suggests that the gerontological imagination on ethnicity has yet to be informed by the latest developments in ethnicity scholarship. The paper therefore urges gerontologists to broaden their understanding of ethnicity and suggests that much could be gained if we were to let the social constructionist perspective on ethnicity and the notion of intersectionality be sources of inspiration for the gerontological imagination on ethnicity.
Research on minority ethnic ageing remains a neglected area within mainstream race and ethnicity studies as well as that of social gerontology. This paper examines the background and reasons for this, arguing that a focus on minority ethnic issues provides a reminder of the complexity of the lifecourse, and of the diversity of ageing as a cultural, economic and social construction. The discussion reviews definitions of ethnicity and their relevance to work in social gerontology. The paper provides an account of early studies of minority ethnic ageing, identifying the strengths and limitations of this research. Later work is then considered, notably that focusing on issues connected with the rise of transnational communities and the changing character of neighbourhoods in urban environments. The paper argues that developing research on minority ethnic ageing has become especially important for understanding the impact of globalisation on re-defining communities, relationships and identities, within and beyond nation states. Globalisation, it is suggested, can be seen as a product of the movement of ethnic groups; equally, ethnic groups are themselves transformed by the possibilities created by global change. The paper concludes with a number of suggestions for embedding work on ethnicity within research in social gerontology.
The aging population is becoming more ethnically diverse. This diversity will require more culturally competent social workers in the field of aging. To be successful in preparing the next generation of social workers, educators must consider introducing ethno-gerontology through-out the curriculum and not overly rely on a specialization or concentration in aging to close the gap. The article provides a history of ethnogerontology and presents its value in preparing culturally competent social workers. It also introduces theoretical frameworks within ethnogerontology. The author presents models to increase ethnogerontology content in the social work curriculum. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Docu-ment Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH.
This article identifies five key considerations for adopting and mainstreaming intersectionality: the language and concepts that are used; the complexities of difference and how to navigate this complexity; the choice of focusing on identities, categories, processes, and/or systems; the model that is used to explain and describe mutually constituted differences; and the principles that determine which interactions are analyzed. The author argues that in the process of mainstreaming intersectionality, it is crucial to frame it as a form of social critique so as to foreground its radical capacity to attend to and disrupt oppressive vehicles of power.
The life course has emerged over the past 30 years as a major research paradigm. Distinctive themes include the relation between human lives and a changing society, the timing of lives, linked or interdependent lives, and human agency. Two lines of research converged in the formation of this paradigm during the 1960s; one was associated with an older "social relationship" tradition that featured intergenerational studies, and the other with more contemporary thinking about age. The emergence of a life course paradigm has been coupled with a notable decline in socialization as a research framework and with its incorporation by other theories. Also, the field has seen an expanding interest in how social change alters people's lives, an enduring perspective of sociological social psychology.
This article discusses the position of older women in gender theory and in social gerontology. It shows how older women are made invisible in gender theory through the selection of arenas and themes, by model monopoly and by a lack of problematization of age. In the social gerontological field, older women have frequently been objects of research. However, double jeopardy assumptions have resulted in a perspective that foregrounds misery. Results from focus group interviews with women aged 75 and over, shed light on ageing as a process of development and on twofold bodily meanings, such as on-stage-body and off-stage-body. Thus, based on an approach of age and gender as intertwining systems, the article argues for a more complex understanding of the intersection of age and gender.
This article examines the politics of reproductive labor in globalization. Using the case of migrant Filipina domestic workers, the author presents the formation of a three-tier transfer of reproductive labor in globalization between the following groups of women: (1) middle-class women in receiving nations, (2) migrant domestic workers, and (3) Third World women who are too poor to migrate. The formation of this international division of labor suggests that reproduction activities, as they have been increasingly commodified, have to be situated in the context of the global market economy. This division of labor is a structural process that determines the migration of Filipina domestic workers. As such, this article also uses in-depth interviews to examine and enumerate the contradictions that migrant Filipina domestic workers experience in their family and work lives as a result of "being in the middle" of this division of labor.
This article reflects on the challenges and contradictions of studying adult lives in contemporary times. It highlights complexities related to age, variability, social change, risk and uncertainty, institutional contexts, politics, and interdependence. It discusses how life-course sociology and life-span psychology might together better inform these and other themes. It also identifies key points of divergence and convergence between the two fields, what these might mean for their future separation, cooperation, or integration, and how the barriers between them might be overcome.
This review explores historical changes in generational relations in American society as they affect adaptation to the later years of life. Following a life course perspective, the review examines changes in the timing of life transitions, in family relations, and in generational and kin assistance and their impact on support in old age. In doing so, it demonstrates the significance of a historical and life course approach to the understanding of generational relations over time. Dispelling prevailing myths about coresidence and generational assistance in the past, the review discusses the circumstances under which nuclear household arrangements were modified and explores patterns of assistance inside and outside the household. It links demographic changes in the timing of life course transitions with patterns of supports to aging parents in the context of changing reciprocities among kin. By comparing two cohorts of adult children in an American community in terms of their supports to aging parents, as w...
The aging population is becoming more ethnically diverse. This diversity will require more culturally competent social workers in the field of aging. To be successful in preparing the next generation of social workers, educators must consider introducing ethno-gerontology throughout the curriculum and not overly rely on a specialization or concentration in aging to close the gap. The article provides a history of ethnogerontology and presents its value in preparing culturally competent social workers. It also introduces theoretical frameworks within ethnogerontology. The author presents models to increase ethnogerontology content in the social work curriculum.
The promises of developmental sciences depend on whether researchers are able to bridge disparate disciplinary orientations and intellectual chasms, further several emerging debates, and overcome many theoretical and methodological barriers, most of which involve time or place in some form. This book is about those challenges. It explicates and critiques the central propositions and controversies in life-course sociology, life-span developmental psychology, and other disciplines; it searches for points of similarity and points of departure between them; and it discusses the emergence of developmental science as a field in its own right. While the book draws most heavily on research on adult development and aging, the challenges discussed herein relate to all life periods. One of the challenges facing developmental scientists is the need to extend theory and research beyond specific life periods and toward the whole of human life. This book focuses on many of the central concepts, measures, and strategies for crafting research on age, cohort, and life course. As such, it stands as a critique of the current state of research on the life course, and is intended to serve as a resource for those who would like to conduct life-course research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article focuses on the disparate impact of Canadian pension policy on women as compared to men, which in turn contributes to the poverty experienced by elderly women in retirement. The major contributing factor is the increasing privatization of the responsibility for economic security in Canada, with a preference for reliance on the private market or private family rather than on the state to provide for the welfare of its citizens. The article discusses the negative impact on women of issues such as the trend towards the establishment of defined contribution workplace pension plans rather than defined contributions plans, the increasing use of tax expenditures to encourage private retirement savings, and pension income splitting. The analysis takes place against the backdrop of the socio-economic realities of women’s lives and concludes that public pensions such as the Old Age Security pension and the Canada Pension Plan must be strengthened if women’s economic inequality in retirement is to be redressed.
This qualitative study explores the international migration patterns and the family lives of older adults. Informants (N = 54) reported that they came to the United States to help out their grown children with housekeeping, child care, and domestic economizing. They described how they strategically navigated U.S. immigration laws choosing to visit, immigrate, or naturalize in order to balance their ties to the United States and their homeland. Their transnational loyalties sometimes led to lives that did not strictly match their visa categories. There were “permanent” temporary visitors, U.S. permanent residents who maintained a “permanent” home elsewhere, and U.S. citizens who had naturalized in order to spend more time abroad. Implications of the findings for immigration policy and family practice are discussed.
In contrast to recent treatment of other social identities, geographers’ work on age still focuses disproportionately on the social-chronological margins – the very young and (to a far lesser extent) the very old – and rarely connects them directly. We outline the benefits of creating relational geographies of age, in order to build out from the recent explosion of children's geographies, and discuss three helpful concepts: intergenerationality, intersectionality and lifecourse. We suggest that participation provides one epistemological vehicle for getting beyond geographies which are mainly adults’.
Age is important from the perspectives of societies, groups, and individuals. For societies, the meanings and uses of age
are often formal. For example, age underlies the organization of family, educational, work, and leisure institutions and organizations.
Many laws and policies structure rights, responsibilities, and entitlements on the basis of age, whether through explicit
age-related rules or implicit judgments about the nature of particular life periods. At the same time, members of a society,
or large subgroups of the population, may share informal ideas about the changes that occur between birth and death, and how
these changes are significant. For example, age may be tied to common notions about appropriate behavior or the proper timing
and progression of experiences and roles.
This article examines compassion fatigue within double duty caregiving, defined here as the provision of care to elderly relatives by practicing nurses. Using qualitative data from our two studies of Canadian double duty caregivers, we identified and interviewed 20 female registered nurses whom we described as "living on the edge." The themes of context, characteristics, and consequences emerged from the findings. In this article, we argue that being both a nurse and a daughter leads to the blurring of boundaries between professional and personal care work, which ultimately predisposed these caregivers to compassion fatigue. We found that the context of double duty caregiving, specifically the lack of personal and professional resources along with increasing familial care expectations, shaped the development of compassion fatigue. Nurse-daughters caring for elderly parents under intense and prolonged conditions exhibited certain characteristics, such as being preoccupied and absorbed with their parents' health needs. The continual negotiation between professional and personal care work, and subsequent erosion of those boundaries, led to adverse health consequences experienced by the nurse-daughters. The study findings point to the need to move beyond the individualistic conceptualization and medical treatment of compassion fatigue to one that recognizes the inherent socio-economic and political contextual factors associated with compassion fatigue. Advocating for practice and policy changes at the societal level is needed to decrease compassion fatigue amongst double duty caregivers. In this article we review the compassion fatigue literature, report our most recent study methods and findings, and discuss our conclusions.
By analyzing the migration behavior and transnational residential strategies of first-generation, aging migrants from a particular Moroccan sending region, this study contributes to a conceptual critique of migration theories that identify the household as the most relevant decisionmaking unit. It highlights the role of intra-household power inequalities and conflicts in migration decisionmaking as well as the effects of migration decisions for intra-household power relations. Many labor migrants who left Morocco to work in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s did not realize their wish to return but instead ended up reunifying their families at the destination. An increasing proportion adopts a pendulum migration strategy to reconcile their own wish to retain strong ties with Morocco with the reluctance of children and spouses to return. Migrants who unilaterally decided not to reunify their families usually return after their active working life. However, this unilateral decision also blocks legal entry into Europe for their children, which has generated considerable intergenerational tensions.
This study examines whether the racial disparity in functional health grows unabated over the adult life course--the cumulative disadvantage hypothesis--or shrinks among the oldest old---the age-as-leveler hypothesis. Special emphasis is placed on the role of socioeconomic status (SES), which is highly associated with race. The analysis uses latent growth-curve modeling to examine differences in age trajectories of functional health between Black and White Americans and is based on nationally representative panel data of 3497 adults. Results cautiously support the age-as-leveler hypothesis. Net of functional health at baseline, Black adults experience a growing disadvantage in functional health over time until the oldest ages, when the gap in functional health begins to shrink. Results indicate that the potential leveling mechanisms of age may be specific to women. SES including financial assets explains the divergence in functional health across young and middle-aged Black and White adults, but not the later-life convergence. This study reveals the life-course pattern of racial disparity in functional health and suggests that more theoretical development is needed in this field to explain why the age-as-leveler and cumulative disadvantage processes are different for functional health than for other outcomes.
A lifecourse perspective is key for understanding and interpreting racial and ethnic patterns in neuropsychological test performance. In this article, we discuss contextual factors that shape the environmental conditions encountered by racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, in particular African-Americans. These conditions include geographic segregation at the level of regions, metropolitan areas, and neighborhoods; intra- and inter-national migration patterns; socioeconomic position, including financial resources, and occupational and educational opportunities; discrimination; and group resources. Each of these exposures sets in course a cascade of individual mediators that ultimately manifest in neuropsychological outcomes. The physiological and behavioral consequences of these pathways likely accumulate across the lifecourse. We focus on cognitive aging, although the processes discussed here begin in infancy and likely influence cognitive outcomes throughout life from childhood into old age. A lifecourse framework can help inform clinical encounters, neuropsychological research, and surveillance regarding the population prevalence of cognitive impairments.