Taking Care of the Oldest in Different Countries

Taking care of the elderly, everyone will have to deal with it sometime in their life, hopefully later than sooner. Taking a look at 3 different countries with their differences and similarities in how they take care of the oldest of the old, will bring forth a lot of information about different cultures. The three countries that we are going to be looking at are Mexico, China, and The United States of America.

Nine percent (10.05 million) of the Mexican population is over 60 years old. The average life expectancy of the elderly in Mexico is 72. There are 87 men for every 100 women and the life expectancy at 60 years old is estimated at 22.9 years for women and 20.9 for men. The aging pattern in Mexico favors longevity in women: in the age group of 60-74 years there are 112 females to every 100 males. Mexico does not have a national social care system or a long-term care policy to integrate, regulate, and evaluate all social and personal care facilities, including long-term care facilities. With a rapidly aging population and the absence of formal support services for the elderly has left informal caregivers, mostly women, with the main responsibility of providing household care activities through the life cycle. Subsidized long-term or elderly care services are almost non-existent; at the same time, privately paid services are too expensive to be a viable alternative for large sections of the population. There is a private market for home care services, especially for domestic services, but for more specialized (nursing) tasks and residential care the market is small, and casts are unaffordable for the large majority of the population, while publicly provided services are virtually absent.

In Mexico the majority of the older population live at home with their spouse or partner, children, grandchildren or other close relatives. Most of the long-term care is provided to them within this pool of family members, mostly by women. A tradition of extended families in which several generations live together and share responsibility for household chores further stimulates and facilitates that both care for the elderly and care for children and/or grandchildren are arranged within the household. The middle generation, sometimes called the sandwich generation, regardless of whether they reside in the same household as the older and younger generation, strong intra-familial pressure to provide care may affect their opportunities to participate in the labor market and contribute an additional source of income to the household. Informal care is usually unpaid, the caregiver must directly derive utility from the activity in order to be willing to provide care to his or her parents. Several motives can be distinguished, including altruism, sense of duty, social norms, reciprocity, bequest, and setting an example for children. In Mexico the main caregiver. To the elderly are the middle-aged woman of the family. She takes care of her family plus the aging parents.

Aiming at ‘ageing healthier and ageing better’, a certain amount of high- quality informal care should be available for elderly persons with physical disability as formal care is barely accessible in China. Therefore, China is aging much faster than other low and middle-income countries. China’s demographic transition and family structural shift are two major challenges in addressing the problem of aged care. The number of partially and completely disabled older people was estimated to reach 40 million in 2015. In 2015 people over the age of 60 reached 222 million, accounting for more than 16 percent of total population. People over 65 reached 144 million accounting for more than 10 percent. At the same time, the elderly dependency ratio is also increasing at a high speed. The Chinese government has built up a LTC system composed of institutional care and home and community-based care during the past decade.

With a severe shortage of housing in most of China often puts children in competition with their parents for space, and anguish over housing disputes and relations with the children. One in three of the urban elderly lives alone. Cities are developing services and day centers to support those staying at home. About 11.3% of elderly persons living in urban areas and 12.5% of older people in rural areas would like to live in a nursing home in their later life, while the great majority of older people still mainly rely on their children and relatives for care at home. Due to the high rates of elderly in China, most who have only one or no children at all tend to be more neglected. They are left to fend for themselves or are forced to move into a home.

Providing care is a major source of both stresses and rewards in America. The 2 main sources: Adult children may have trouble coping with declines in their parents’ functioning, especially those involving cognitive abilities and problematic behavior, and with work overload, burnout, and loss of the previous relationship with a parent. If the care situation is perceived as confining or seriously infringes on the adult child’s responsibilities (spouse, parent, employee, etc.), then the situation is likely to be perceived negatively, which may lead to family or job conflicts, economic problems, loss of self-identity, and decreased competence.

The stresses of caring for a parent mean that the caregiver needs to monitor his or her own health. Carin for an aging parent also has rewards. Can bring parents and their adult children closer together and provide away for adult children to feel that they are giving back to their parents. Care providers’ stressors are appraised as burdensome, which creates negative health consequences for the care provider. Parents don’t always like depending on their kids. Independence and autonomy are important traditional values in some ethic groups, and their loss is not taken lightly. They would rather pay a professional than move in with a family member. They find it demeaning to live with their children, “they do not want to burden them.” 

To summarize, after learning about the different cultures and how they all compare and differ from each other, they all have their positives and negatives. In Mexico informal care, which is at home care. Most of China’s elderly, especially in rural areas, still live with their families, and the Government will do all it can to encourage family support. In America determining whether older parents are satisfied with the help their children provide is a complex issue. Misunderstandings can occur, and the frustration that caregivers feel may be translated directly into negative interactions.

Bibliography

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