Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Peru, like many other developing countries, will soon be classified by demographers as “aging.” The complexities of population aging are exacerbated by other demographic shifts, including diminishing fertility, international migration, and the entrance of women into the formal labor market. This paper draws on ongoing ethnographic research into aging, kinship, and transforming social expectations in Lima and Ayacucho. It identifies the range of social expectations in the urban Andes regarding who is responsible for caring for older people – their younger kin, the government, and/or philanthropic institutions? I contrast these ethnographically-derived conclusions with the assumptions embedded within the “dependency ratio,” which implies that workers will care for their young and old. The assumption that this is so requires a great deal of optimism about filial responsibility. Although filial responsibility is often viewed as a cultural imperative, my ethnographically informed critique of this concept reveals it to be fraught and fragile.