Systematic Reviews (Asynchronous Session)
Financial Exploitation of Older Adults: Social Awareness of a Major Social Problem
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ronald Dolon
Elder financial exploitation is a growing threat to our nation’s older adults. The United States has no national reporting mechanism to track financial exploitation of older adults. Financial exploitation has been called “the crime of the 21st century.” More than 25,500 older Americans reported sending 16 million dollars to scammers posing as family members and claiming an injury or arrest in a foreign country. It is reported financial abuse cost older Americans 3.6 billion dollars every year. The number of victims is expected to grow as the older populations in the United States is expected to reach 71 million over the next few decades. With old age often comes social isolation and mental and physical decline which makes the older adult susceptible. Prevention is an important part of combating financial exploitation. When exploitation occurs, victims are left to cope with all the aftermath of compromised identity, damaged credit, and financial loss. In addition, older adults experience a painful range of emotions including anger, fear and frustration. This workshop is designed to provide information and tips to help prevent frauds, scams, and other types of older adult financial exploitation. Topics include factors in targeting, effects on older adults, and steps to prevent financial exploitation.
Anticipatory Loss and Managing Family Grief for Aging Families Affected by an Autism Spectrum Disorder: Anticipatory Loss in Parents of Adult Children with Autism View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Connie Kartoz, Munira Wells
Global incidence of an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is 1:160, with rates as high as 1:54 in the US. ASD is a heterogeneous lifelong disorder often requiring supported living, most commonly with parents. Little is known about how parents and adult children with an ASD navigate end of life and grief. This paper discusses the results of a qualitative study exploring parent’s considerations of late life for themselves and their adult child After IRB approval, purposive and snowball sampling were employed. Data saturation was reached with a sample of ten mothers and four fathers from the mid-Atlantic US. Participants were interviewed via Zoom, answering prompts such as: “When you think about your child getting older, what do you think about?” Researchers verified audio transcripts and used content analysis to code key words and generate themes. The main subtheme was ‘love and loss.’ Parents grappled with how their child would be understood and manage after they died. Elements of anticipatory loss present were worry, sadness and gratitude; themes previously existing in the anticipatory loss literature. Worry prompted a variety of responses ranging from approach to avoidance. Parents of adults children with an ASD experience anticipatory loss on behalf of their child. Healthcare providers and policy makers must begin to help these families prepare for smooth transitions of care in safe and secure housing scenarios, while at the same time help family members manage anticipatory loss and eventual grief. More research exploring best practices in this area are deeply needed.
Work-Family Spillover for Nurses Approaching Retirement: Gendered Experiences of Nurses in Ireland View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aine Ni Leime, Margaret O'neill
This paper discusses the implications of work-family spillover for nurses in Ireland, in the context of policies designed to extend working life. Such policies are promoted as beneficial for older workers and as contributing to sustaining state pension systems. One of the most common policies is to increase state pension age. While such policies may appear beneficial or at least benign for all workers, a lifecourse of family care – caring for children and/or older adults – can impact on work-family spillover, career interruption, gendered pension provision, and the need to work longer. Work-family spillover involves the transmission of stress or emotion between work and home roles (Cottingham, Chapman & Erikson, 2020). This paper sets out the policy context in terms of government and employer policy in Ireland. Findings from the analysis of qualitative data from the DAISIE project in Ireland – lifecourse interviews with 40 nurses, including 24 women and 16 men, and follow-up interviews with 25 of these nurses, 16 women and nine men – are presented. The interviews focus on participants’ work-life trajectories, caring roles, working conditions, and financial and health outcomes as they approach retirement. A lifecourse approach to analysis of transitions to retirement/extending working lives is deployed (Giele and Elder, 1998). Gendered differences are evident in experiences of caring work and work-life spillover, with women observing more negative effects. More women than men plan to retire early, particularly during COVID-19. Implications for employer policies and national employment/pension policies are considered.
Reform Effects on Private Pension Size in OECD Countries View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sara Ynes Gonzales Santisteban
Prior studies have noted the highly heterogeneous design of funded pensions. We recognize that there is no single best design and the successful implementation of any reform depends on political factors outside the scope of the reforms. Unfortunately, there is no repository of all reforms affecting private pensions. Following Beetsma et al. (2020) and Carone et al. (2016), this study codes private pension reforms by distinguishing between two dimensions: the reforms' direction and topic. The direction was categorized as expanding, contracting, or both. While topics mainly affect benefit, contribution, coverage, fees, taxes, and diversification/security. We evaluate the short-term effect of funded pension reforms on the size of their assets in OECD countries between 2005 and 2020.
Social Inequality of Participation and Risks for Exclusion from Swedish Late Working Life View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gülin Öylü, Andreas Motel Klingebiel, Susanne Kelfve
Sweden has rising and a higher participation rate compared to other OECD countries due to its reforms on pension system, active labor market policies, and higher composition of higher educated groups. However, inequality in exit timing, and early exits among blue-collar workers and lower educated groups remains. This paper combines several studies for portraying inequality and exclusion risks in late working life in Sweden and mechanisms that these inequalities and risks are generated using Swedish register data. First, various exit types and employment type trajectories among different gender and education groups are presented. Second, the link between childhood conditions, earlier working life attachment and exit timing are discussed. Third, reemployment chances and the risk of exit followed by unemployment among different age groups in late working life are explained. Finally, the role of branches and company structure in employment chances of older workers are presented.
