Change for Better
On What Level Do European Welfare States Help to Avoid Poverty Risk of the Elderly: Hypothetical Policy Evaluation Research Towards Long-term Care
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jia Xu
In order to relieve old age potential poverty, European welfare states have shifted their focus increasingly towards long-term care strategies. Research assessing the generosity of welfare states in the long-term care policy field to the elderly mainly focus on government expenditure and policy benefit itself either in cash or in kind, however, these approaches disregarding the actual costs of the elderly have to face when they are in need of long-term care services and the consequences when there are gaps between care costs and care needs. Long-term care policy plays a role with regard to the poverty risk in the elderly. This paper takes a hypothetical approach on examining how far long-term care policy field compensate for the potential risk of poverty in the old age in cross-national analysis. Nevertheless, the elderly can face poverty risks for many reasons actually, for instance, not enough pension, being ill and being care needy or for gender differences or for widows whose pension credits partly rely on deceased partners. This paper focuses on the interrelationship between long-term care policy and potential poverty risk. It assesses long-term care policy designs in different European welfare states, evaluates the needs of older people in long-term care and to what extent the policy design covers these costs or leave gaps to hypothetical poverty risk. It includes the findings of generosity level of long-term care policy in a cross-national comparative study on the hypothetical impact on old age poverty risk in European welfare states.
Victimization Across the Lifecourse: The Differences in Context and Consequences for the Elderly
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ronet Bachman, Madeline Stenger, Michelle meloy Meloy
Using the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) aggregate data from 1999 through 2016, this paper examines the long term trends of violent crime against individuals 65 years of age or older. It also provides a detailed examination of contextual factors of violent victimization across age groups, including the relationship between the victim and offenders, the perceived age, gender, and race of offenders, use of a weapon by the offender, self-protection behavior utilized by the victim, and the location of the victimization. Second, the differential outcomes of a victimization will be examined across age groups including whether victims sustained injuries, if these injuries required medical care, whether police were notified of the victimization, and if so, the police response. And finally, multivariate models will predict the likelihood of sustaining injury as the result of a victimization to determine whether older individuals are more likely to sustain injuries net of other important variables such as self-protective behavior, victim/offender relationship, and weapon presence. Age specific models will determine whether the factors that affect injury are the same or different for younger versus older victims of violence.
Affording Ignorance: A Tale of the Elderly Rural Poor of Bangladesh
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Owasim Akram
Relying on a qualitative panel dataset this research aimed to explore the experience of exploitation, exclusion, and marginalization of elderly extreme poor (EP) of Bangladesh. Findings indicated that the EP elderly people are not only asset/income poor but also vulnerably relation poor. Fractured intergenerational relation/bargain and absence of state led support forced them to go for labor intensive manual jobs. Most of them lived either through begging or working as a domestic help. Access to social safety nets depended on their political loyalty and strength of social connections thus most of them were denied. All the respondents were virtually landless and reported severe housing problem. Living in their own land found to be the most important empowerment indicators. The lived experiences of the extreme poor elderly people in such destitution, marginalization, and vulnerability are tantamount to gross ignorance of their rights and entitlements which would be too costly for a nation to afford.
