Search results for ‘Subject term:"older people"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 1 of 1
Challenging expectations of care among older Tibetans living in India and Switzerland
- Author:
- WANGMO Tenzin
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 30(5), July 2010, pp.879-896.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
This paper directly compares the expectation and reality of care of 16 older Tibetans living in India, a developing country, with 14 living in the developed country of Switzerland (n = 30, 12 women, 18 men, average age 73). The first to offer refugee status to Tibetans, Switzerland and India are the two oldest communities of Tibetans and interviews were conducted in 2007-2008, nearly 50 years after they began. The changes to intergenerational relationships, filial piety in Asian society, context and socioeconomic group are examined. Most participants in India had limited resources and needed financial support, with parents with many children, and children resident in developed countries receiving better financial support and collective care than those with one child or all of their children still living in India. Participants in Switzerland were entitled to old age benefits, so required emotional support and affirmation only, but dissatisfaction when grown up children adopted western values and the family’s cultural continuity and identity could be lost, was evident. The authors call for old age benefit provision to Tibetans in developing countries, to ensure minimum levels of finance and independence, and in developed countries the promotion of mutual definitions of filial piety among different generations of refugees and immigrants would also help minimise potential problems within intergenerational relationships.