Identifying vulnerable older people and understanding the causes and consequences of their vulnerability is of human concern and an essential task of social policy. To date, vulnerability in old age has mainly been approached by identifying high risk groups, like the poor, childless, frail or isolated. Yet vulnerability is the outcome of complex interactions of discrete risks, namely of being exposed to a threat, of a threat materialising, and of lacking the defences or resources to deal with a threat. In this article, we review approaches to vulnerability in various disciplines in order to develop a systematic framework for approaching vulnerability. This framework distinguishes and examines the interactions among the domains of exposure, threats, coping capacities and outcomes. Drawing on European and Asian gerontological literature, we discuss what might be meant by these domains and their place in the understanding of vulnerability in old age. Two case studies are presented - one on homelessness in Britain, the other on familial care provision in Indonesia - to illustrate the ways in which specific vulnerabilities are created and distributed over the lifecourse.
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.
The demographic study of child supply has long concentrated on the implications of reproductive excess, rather than a lack of children. In recent years attention to population aging has begun to redress this emphasis, but even in aging research the comparative study of childlessness has a low profile. Data collected as part of anthropological and demographic research on aging in Indonesia are used to question current assumptions and to introduce issues and concepts that shed new light on current levels and experiences of childlessness. In our East Javanese study community 25 percent of the elderly have no living children, and another 15 percent have one child. Provincial and national data indicate that these findings are part of a wider pattern, corroborated by historical evidence from Indonesia, Europe, and populations elsewhere in the world. Analysis of the East Javanese data shows that childlessness is a composite category. Demographic childlessness occurs where a combination of proximate determinants (nuptiality, mortality, primary and pathological sterility) leads to no childbearing and child survival. De facto childlessness arises where there is a lack of support from any children. Actual childlessness aggregates demographic and de facto childlessness, net of adoption or remarriage where these provide alternative access to children. Analysis also takes into account the practices of patronage, charity, and kin support to assess the implications of childlessness in old age where state support is lacking.
The provision of physical care is a sensitive matter in all cultures and is circumscribed by moral injunctions and personal preferences. Research on Western cultures has shown care networks to be narrow subsets of people's wider networks and revealed dependence to be deeply undermining of full personhood. In non-Western societies these issues have received little attention, although it is sometimes assumed that care provision and dependence are much less problematic. This paper uses longitudinal ethnographic data from two ethnic groups in rural Indonesia to compare care preferences and practices in old age and to examine the implications of care dependence. The groups manifest varying degrees of daughter preference in care and differ in the extent to which notions of shame and avoidance prohibit cross-gender intimate care and care by 'non-blood' relatives. Demographic and social constraints often necessitate compromises in actual care arrangements (e.g. dependence on in-laws, neighbours or paid carers), not all of which are compatible with quality care and a valued identity. We argue that by probing the norms and practices surrounding care provision in different socio-cultural settings, it becomes possible to arrive at a deeper understanding of kinship, personhood and sociality. These insights are not only of sociological interest but have implications for people's vulnerability to poor quality care in old age.
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