ABSTRACT
In this analytic essay, the authors focus on the implications of the United States’ old-age crisis for low-income families and particularly for Latinos living with dementia, who represent a rapidly growing segment of the country’s population. Although the family provides vital support, increasing life spans and long periods of disability will inevitably increase the need for both formal and informal caregiving assistance. This review highlights defamilization among Latinos in addition to several current and proposed policy responses. Throughout the chapter, the authors draw on two of the major tenets of the life-course perspective: cumulative (dis)advantage and linked lives. Earlier social disadvantage gives rise to later disadvantage, which places vulnerable ethnic minority older adults and their families at greater risk for poor health in mid- and late life. These increasing health and functional limitations invariably lead to reliance on significant others for more care and support. Embeddedness of individuals within and across generations can have reciprocal effects on trajectories and life-course outcomes. Therefore, the authors examine the community resources that Latino and other family caregivers can call upon to assist in dealing with seriously cognitively impaired relatives. These resources range from informal unpaid care from family members and others to formal governmental agencies that provide eldercare services and, in between, the non-governmental organizations that are increasingly important in providing assistance to families. The chapter ends with a discussion of policy options and proposed strategies to address the changing needs of Latino caregivers.
