Aging & Social Change: Twelfth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

In Mexico, elders cohabit with younger generations because losing independence and the need to maintain family relationships. However, unemployment and inflation as economic consequences of COVID-19, have disrupted consumption patterns as well as the economy and household relationships. The literature indicates that kins are responsible in eight out of ten episodes of violence against elderly; thus, living with relatives may be a risk factor for elders, especially when pensions represent a – and in some cases the only one – household income source. Through a random and stratified by municipalities sample of 2,956 elders (Oct-Dec 2020), of the state of Tlaxcala (Mexico), through a simultaneous equations tobit model, we analyze the relationship between economic violence (theft of valuables items, money, government pension or dispossession of real estate), and non-economic violence (physical, psychological, abandonment and mistreatment). A tobit modelling is appropriate because self-reported violence is considered as a latent variable due to the fact that persons might not declare that they are suffering violence despite of the opposite. Often, such events are not reported by elders because the fear that the situation will worsen or when perpetrators are relatives. We found a strong and significant simultaneity relationship among economic and non-economic violence, although the determinants of each kind of violence vary according to each type. Therefore, during COVID-19 elders are at risk and personal and household factors may generate self-reinforcing abuses. The Mexican government must intervene by implementing specific public policy in this regard.