This projects Overall Aim is to lay foundations for a program application to examine for the first time individual variation and age-related changes in cognitive health in mature adults across non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic), low-incomce populations with the ultimate goal to understand if cognitive aging follows universal trajectories and/or is determined by environmentally dependent mechanisms.

Care work, both paid and unpaid, is currently under unprecedented pressure. Population aging and the lengthening of life expectancy are increasing demand for care labor, at the same time that existing social arrangements to meet care needs for the elderly are falling short. The pool of both paid and unpaid caregivers is compressing, in part due to the high economic penalties to specializing in caregiving, either in the family or in the market.

African population dynamics are experiencing important shifts with substantial implications for family structure and the vulnerability of dependent populations, especially children, elderly, widows, and disabled in the household. Changing African household structure and living arrangements are likely to have consequences on relationships within the households. The concentration of AIDS deaths in the reproductive age group has significant consequences on the family because most people in this age group are producing and raising young children.

The principal aim of the project was to investigate health disparities among the elderly and old population by socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity in Mexico and the United States, and to propose potential explanations for the observed differences in morbidity and mortality observed among various population groups in the two countries. The project aimed also to investigate how the effects of socioeconomic factors such as education, race, ethnicity, sex change over the life span of individuals, and whether these effects a different among the two countries.

A few recent studies suggest that out-of-pocket health care expenditures incurred prior to the death of a spouse may affect the subsequent probability of spousal impoverishment, especially for widowed women.  These studies, however, do not distinguish among couples who endured a lifetime of poverty, those whose joint resources immunize a surviving spouse from poverty, and those whose resources are inadequate to buffer the surviving spouse from a late life episode of poverty.

The PARC project supported two activities.  First, was an analysis of the psychometric data from MHAS.  This analysis demonstrated that the MHAS battery is a valuable tool for measuring differences in cognitive functioning in Mexico.  The data show clear, sharp increases with age in cognitive impairment of the magnitude that has been observed in other populations.  The issue that remains unresolved is the choice of cut-points for a dichotomous classification into “impaired’ and “normal” groups.  This problem is complicated by the presence of very sharp differentials

Data on identical and fraternal twins have proven to be an invaluable resource for research on aging because of the ability to utilize the “twin design” in order to (a) control for unobserved endowments – including genetic dispositions and family backgrounds – in behavioral analyses of health outcomes, and (b) conduct behavioral genetic analyses that disentangle genetic, shared environment and non-shared environmental factors.

We propose to estimate the demographic impact of HIV/AIDS on the availability of caretakers for those affected by AIDS and on financial support for the elderly. The elderly are primary resources for the care of adults with AIDS and for orphans; they are recipients of family income transfers and are thus affected by changes in active life expectancy that can redirect family resources from the elderly to health care.

Despite the importance of population aging in both Latin America and among U.S. Latinos, and continuity and scope of migration flows from Latin America (particularly Mexico) to the United States, there is limited understanding of the link between immigration and aging in the Americas.  While an extensive body of literature has examined the impact of emigration and migrant remittances on the educational attainment of younger generations, how these forces shape the process of aging in Latin America remains understudied.