Inter-generational family support provided by older people in Indonesia

Most social research on ageing in Asia has focused on the support provided by adult children to their parents, and thereby suggests that as a matter of course older people are in need of support. This paper offers a different perspective. Drawing on ethnographic and quantitative data from a village in East Java, it examines the extent of older people's dependence on others and highlights the material and practical contributions that they make to their families. It is shown that only a minority of older people are reliant on children or grandchildren for their daily survival. In the majority of cases, the net flow of inter-generational support is either downwards – from old to young – or balanced. Far from merely assisting with childcare and domestic tasks, older people are often the economic pillars of multi-generational families. Pension and agricultural incomes serve to secure the livelihoods of whole family networks, and the accumulated wealth of older parents is crucial for launching children into economic independence and underwriting their risks. Parental generosity does not generally elicit commensurate reciprocal support when it is needed, leaving many people vulnerable towards the end of their lives

Indonesia against the trend? Ageing and inter-generational wealth flows in two Indonesian communities

Indonesian family systems do not conform to the prevailing image of Asian families, the predominant arrangements being nuclear and bilateral, with an important matrilineal minority. This paper considers the strength of family ties in two communities, focussing particularly on inter-generational flows of support to and from older members. Data are drawn from a longitudinal anthropological demography that combines ethnographic and panel survey methods. Several sources of variation in family ties are detailed, particularly the heterogeneity of support flows - balanced, upward, and downward - that co-exist in both communities. Different norms in each locale give sharply contrasting valuations of these flows. The ability of families to observe norms is influenced by the effectiveness of networks and by socio-economic status

Unravelling the Wider Benefits of Social Pensions: Secondary Beneficiaries of the Older Persons Cash Transfer Program in the Slums of Nairobi

A growing number of low and middle income countries have introduced social pension programs for older people. Research has highlighted that the impact of such programs can extend beyond the primary recipient when funds are shared. It less clear the extent to which such redistribution persists in the lowest resource settings. Using data from a survey conducted in 2016, this paper examines how recipients of the Kenyan Older Persons Cash Transfer Program (OPCTP) living in two slum communities in Nairobi reallocate their social pension by examining the characteristics of older people who are more likely to share their cash and identifying secondary beneficiaries. Findings suggest that 40% of beneficiaries re-allocate some or all of the cash received. The majority of secondary beneficiaries are either grandchildren or children of the primary beneficiary. Overall, a higher proportion of the total cash is shared with secondary beneficiaries living in rural Kenya, as compared to those living in the same household. This highlights the role played by older people, even the most vulnerable, in providing support to wider kin networks; reinforcing the argument that investing in social pensions has much broader potential societal impact than the intended aims of reducing recipient household poverty. By enhancing economic opportunities and investments in human capital more broadly, societies that invest in social pension programs may improve the overall living conditions and experiences of ageing in their countries at a critical moment of global population ageing

Social exclusion of older persons: a scoping review and conceptual framework

As a concept, social exclusion has considerable potential to explain and respond to disadvantage in later life. However, in the context of ageing populations, the construct remains ambiguous. A disjointed evidence-base, spread across disparate disciplines, compounds the challenge of developing a coherent understanding of exclusion in older age. This article addresses this research deficit by presenting the findings of a two-stage scoping review encompassing seven separate reviews of the international literature pertaining to old-age social exclusion. Stage one involved a review of conceptual frameworks on old-age exclusion, identifying conceptual understandings and key domains of later-life exclusion. Stage two involved scoping reviews on each domain (six in all). Stage one identified six conceptual frameworks on old-age exclusion and six common domains across these frameworks: neighbourhood and community; services, amenities and mobility; social relations; material and financial resources; socio-cultural aspects; and civic participation. International literature concentrated on the first four domains, but indicated a general lack of research knowledge and of theoretical development. Drawing on all seven scoping reviews and a knowledge synthesis, the article presents a new definition and conceptual framework relating to old-age exclusion

A framework for understanding old-age vulnerabilities

Understanding vulnerability matters because being vulnerable represents a profoundly undesirable state. People who experience vulnerability in old age are of obvious humanitarian concern, as their insecurity and heightened exposure to certain threats is likely to be compounded by reduced capacities for coping independently. Comprehension of the causes and consequences of vulnerability is important for the development of social policies as it indicates ways of avoiding and alleviating bad outcomes. Policies which have the concept of vulnerability at their heart encourage the development of preventive and targeted measures, which is crucial in conditions of financial constraints and competing demands. By studying vulnerability we investigate processes of relative disadvantage or exclusion and, for purposes of comparison, absolute differences in socio-economic or policy context can be set aside. This makes the study of vulnerability particularly germane to cross-cultural and cross-national research on old-age and elderly support

The negotiation of care network boundaries among different cultural and socio-economic groups in Indonesia

In Indonesia, a rapidly ageing, middle-income country, the care for older people is by default a family responsibility. Yet cultural, religious, and socio-economic heterogeneity results in important variation in who is considered primarily responsible for care and how families negotiate care, especially when preferred carers are not available. This paper draws on ethnographic data from an ESRC project on later-life care networks in Indonesia. The five study sites across Indonesia include matrilineal, patrilineal, stem-family and nuclear-family systems, each with different care preferences, while also encompassing significant socio-economic variation. This allows investigation of how different subgroups manipulate boundaries around acceptable care, and the implications for the quality and sustainability of older people’s care. This reveals that on the whole, better off families flexibly expand their care networks, drawing in additional members to achieve a sustainable division of labour. Where normative solutions are unavailable – e.g. due to a lack of daughters – they successfully redefine the boundaries and nature of acceptable familial care. Reliance on paid care, for example, is presented within a kinship idiom. By contrast, poorer families often experience demographic and economic pressures on the provision of care. Childlessness, conflict (especially around inheritance or other assets) and long-term migration can result in small care networks and unstainable, inequitable care arrangements. In such circumstances, the identity of carers or the apparent lack of care needs are less the result of cultural or personal preferences than of familial power dynamics and a lack of options

Transnational family support and the transformation of local networks: old-age support among a German minority in Romania

In our progressively mobile and ageing world, researchers and policy makers are increasingly interested in the implications of migration for the support and care of older people ‘left behind’. An important strand within this work examines transnational family support by older people’s migrant children. The main tenor is one of viewing migration as leading to older people’s greater social, material and emotional vulnerability, unless offset by remittance flows and/or ‘caring from a distance’. Very little research has considered transnational family links within the context of the wider networks within which older people are embedded, nor has the impact of migration on these networks been scrutinised. The Transylvanian Saxons, a German-speaking minority in Romania, present an ideal case study to examine the interplay of local and transnational dynamics in old-age support provision, because emigration to Germany post-1990 among this minority group was dramatic, and the Saxon population remaining in Romania is now notably aged. This paper draws on interviews from 2008 and 2015 with stakeholders and older Saxons in and around Sibiu. It argues that transnational family support is surprisingly limited, consisting chiefly of visits and occasional gifts, but rarely extending to monetary support or hands-on care. Instead local networks comprising local kin, Romanian neighbours and German institutions (esp. the Lutheran church) play a more significant role for older people’s wellbeing. However, the importance of local networks is not incidental to mass emigration, but instead has arisen out of the transformation of local kinship and community networks through emigration and wider societal changes

Comparing vulnerability and social network responses across lifecourse stages, cultures and socio-economic strata in Indonesia

We know that different stages in a lifecourse harbour particular opportunities and challenges due to the specific transitions associated with those lifecourse stages. The successful (or otherwise) navigation of lifecourse transitions and crises then has implications for future outcomes. Despite their specificity, many crises can be reduced to a set of types of losses: loss of health, loss of livelihood, loss of network member, loss of reputation. This simplification facilitates comparative analysis across different lifecourse stages and subgroups. This paper examines vulnerability at different lifecourse stages by comparing life history data from six Indonesian communities. We ask: What are key sources of vulnerability experienced by people at different stages of the lifecourse, focusing on a) family formation; b) middle age; and c) old age? What are the relevant social networks people at different stages have access to, and how are these shaped by culture, socio-economic position, gender and location? To what extent are networks able and willing to mitigate the vulnerabilities experienced by members at different stages? The paper draws on data from a comparative ethnographic research project, funded by the Australian Research Council, which studies economic, social and health vulnerabilities over the lifecourse in six communities. These capture important ethnic, demographic and socio-economic heterogeneity in Indonesia. The project employs a common methodology (participant observation, life history interviews, network mapping) across the sites, some of which are familiar from earlier ethnographic research on ageing in Indonesia. The paper first maps key vulnerabilities at the three lifecourse stages in the six communities; it then focuses on a particular crisis (loss of health or loss of livelihood) and compares social network responses across stages and communities. This sheds light on our understanding of how lifecourse disruptions are mitigated differentially depending on location within the lifecourse, socio-economic landscape and local culture