ABSTRACT
As part of a study of the problems of immigrants aging in a culture into which they were not born, we attempted to measure the degree to which families and individuals in three-generational samples from two ethnic communities retain traditional ways of life in an urban American setting. One facet of the relationship of culture to aging is that of “acculturation.” Central questions are: How, why, and to what extent do immigrants retain their cultural traditions, and how does this retention aid or hinder their adaptation to old age? This report describes the quantitative measures used to construct a typology; the types are further analyzed and discussed separately [1].
