GLOBAL COOPERATION NEWSLETTER
September 2013
In this issue:
 Hispanics in the US: Social Protection Options
 Tackling Inequalities beyond 2015 through Social Protection
 How to make the voices of the marginalized heard: TheParticipateInitiative Useful resources and links


Featured article: Hispanics in the US: Social Protection Options

María Amparo Cruz-Saco - Professor of Economics, Connecticut College (New London CT, USA),and Research Associate, Universidad del Pacifico (Lima, Peru)
The demographics of the United States are undergoing major changes, owing to low fertility, rapidaging and the presence of immigrants from across the globe (especially Hispanics). As thedependency rate increases resulting from the shrinking of the working age population and theexpansion of the population over 65, the demand for long-term care and other health-related
services on the part of older persons will exert enormous pressure on existing support systems. To
address the emerging needs of the growing elderly population, all partners, such as government
institutions (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security), private long-term care providers, nongovernmental organizations and families and communities will need to adapt and design new plansand programs aimed at meeting the growing demand by older persons for quality services.
Achieving this goal might, however, prove problematic for the aged, Hispanics in particular.
The growth in the number of older Hispanics is a salient aspect in the changes affecting thepopulation and culture of older persons in the U.S. For a variety of reasons, Hispanics have a longer
life expectancy, which is known as the “Hispanic Paradox.” By 2050, older Hispanics will represent
more than 40% of all people over the age of 65. In states such as Texas, Arizona, Florida,California and New York, where Hispanics represent the majority or a high proportion of the total
population, older Hispanics will represent the majority of their cohort by mid-century. Given theiroverall lower per capita incomes and their low investments in complementary retirement schemes,including portfolio investments, real estate, and other forms of long-term savings, the following
question arises: What are the planning options for old age for that group?
Page 1 of 6Admittedly, this is too complex a question for us to expect a universal answer. There are many
structural variables that accompany the process of aging, making planning challenging at best.
Apart from one’s genetic makeup, lifestyle, occupation, prevalent values and culture also play arole. Individual variables will affect the quality of life in old age as well as economic stability inretirement. Furthermore, there are also events beyond one’s control that influence life choices andplanning decisions. Situations such as war or violent conflicts lead to displacement, often changing
life’s trajectory in unexpected ways. Among the uncertain variables is the fact that we do not know
how a person’s health condition and mobility will change. Similarly, it is unknown to what extent a
person’s financial resources will remain stable. It is also important to consider preferences withregard to one’s desired autonomy and residence when planning ahead. Finally, decisions at thenational and local levels are difficult to anticipate; therefore, existing services for older persons in
the community may be subject to change. The only thing that is known for sure is that older
persons will eventually need long-term care.
While the natural process of aging brings about uncertainties and risks, advanced societies havedevised protection systems to sustain and support older persons, in particular, addressing longterm care needs. Such systems include private and public programs that extend care and services
beyond the realm of the family. Such programs encompass a range of social services, including
senior centers, organizations of home-care providers, nursing homes, assisted living facilities andvarious intergenerational programs. Hispanics in the U.S. often do not, however, have the financial
means to contract for services for long-term care in efficient and caring nursing homes and inassisted-leaving facilities. They simply lack insurance policies or the readily available financial
resources to pay for such services, which nowadays can cost around $225 a day (totaling morethan $80,000 a year).
With their tradition of familism and reliance on closely knitted communities caring for dependents,
Hispanics are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
On one side is the rock: a lack of means. A vast number of Hispanics perform low-skill, low-paying
jobs and don’t have the financial capacity to save enough for retirement. Those who contribute toSocial Security and are eligible for benefits may earn a supplementary or disability pension that canpartially support their long-term care. However, Social Security in the U.S. was conceived tocomplement income during retirement. The majority of working class Hispanics will not haveamassed a fortune large enough to supplement their low Social Security pensions, even if they
were eligible to receive one. As is well known, a large number of Hispanics pay Social Securitytaxes with fake IDs, and without comprehensive immigration reform they will certainly be ineligible
to draw a pension. Their economic future is far from promising.
On the other side is the hard place: the constraints imposed by aging. Despite their strong sense offamily, Hispanics realize that the daily realities of life in the U.S. limit their care-giving capacities.
Low-paying jobs in more than one occupation, responsibilities at home—and often with smallchildren and teenagers-- long commutes and multiple errands are challenging. One way or another,those problems reduce the time and resources needed to provide care-giving to aging parents inneed. Often, family members pay a high price, such as quitting a job or sacrificing other activities,
in order to fulfill their moral obligations. Eventually, however, many older Hispanics need to beinstitutionalized in nursing homes that are supported by state funds, thus shedding light on why
older Hispanics are the fastest growing population in U.S. nursing homes.
Despite the scale and scope of the rapid aging of this group in the U.S., it is surprising that there
aren’t copious studies analyzing the existing trade-offs in the context of adequate public policies

Page 2 of 6and interventions. We1 recently conducted an exploratory study on aging and planning for aging
among Hispanics in the small New England town of New London, Connecticut.2 This town is home toabout 30 thousand residents, presently representing equally Hispanics, Afro-Americans, andCaucasians. However, given the higher fertility and continuous immigration, Hispanics are bound tobecome the majority population in less than two decades. Our study used 6 focus group discussions
with 37 participants and was conducted over January and May 2012.The two main open-ended
questions asked were the following: “What is aging?” and “How are you planning for your ownaging?”
The following findings provide a preliminary summary of the Hispanic perspective. First, Hispanics
have a distinctive cultural construction of aging that emphasizes the social relationships over thebiological process of aging. Basically, as long as they can say that they “are of use” and can “giveback” or “help” they feel that they are still young and autonomous. Being a presence in one’s own
community or “barrio” seems to give meaning and a sense of appreciation, (i.e. life is synchronized
to others who are often younger and include one’s own adult children, the children of relatives,
friends and grandchildren). This sense of togetherness is closely linked to ensuring the older
person’s dignity and her or his central role in the community despite even physical decline. Second,
the tight community includes the core role of adult children, who provide care as much as they
possibly can to honor their basic normative value of familism. And yet, it is also true that thatrelationship can be hard for both parties, as an aging parent often wishes not to become a burden
and the adult child makes sacrifices to fulfill her filial obligation. Third, there is a universal wish to
be autonomous, mobile and self-reliant in old age, living in one’s own home in geographic proximity
to one's adult children. Surely, when the time comes, the realization that one needs help witheveryday chores, including bathing, dressing, food preparation, feeding oneself and so on, implies
the unavoidable decision of what will come next. That leads to the fourth finding, fear of
institutionalization in establishments that are typically regarded as both insensitive and culturally
distant from one’s own. Having had previous experience as a caregiver in nursing homes or ahome-care aid, respondents felt that institutionalized older persons live in depressing conditions
and in loneliness. Several respondents talked about the possibility of “returning back home” toenvironments that they imagined would be culturally attuned and accepting. And fifth, whileplanning is distinctive for each personal situation and set of priorities, financial planning for old age
was regarded as a challenge. Owing to the needs of everyday living, little or no residual funds wereleft for retirement savings. Many respondents, however, took pride in how elders they knew hadtaken steps to pay for their cremation or a decent burial.
In sum, among Hispanics, the cultural construction of family and aging is seen in light of moralethical imperatives of familism, resulting in expectations of care-taking and well- being throughout
the life span. While it can be argued that in most societies children take care of their aged or frail
parents simply because that is a natural human impulse, within Hispanic culture, those imperatives
are seen as particularly strong. The role of formal, publicly run, outside-the-family systems of carefor the aging population has been limited. Rather, families and communities of friends take care of
their older persons. Hispanics who immigrated to the U.S. and share that model of care for older
persons take on the responsibility of being providers for or sustaining, emotionally and oftenfinancially, their older parents. The expectations stemming from familism are therefore stronger
among Hispanics than in the mainstream American culture. On the other hand, planning (long-termin particular) becomes more ambiguous as respondents confront their future as older and oldest(over 80 years old) persons.

1 See Cruz-Saco, MaríaAmparo, Ronaldo Flores, and MónikaLópez-Anuarbe (2013) “Aging and Familism among Hispanics:
A Case Study using Focus Groups”. New London, CT: Connecticut College, manuscript.
2 This town is representative of similar towns in the northeast and mid-west of the U.S. that constitute recent destinations for
Hispanic immigrants.
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The lessons from this exploratory study and other literature on the topic of aging among Hispanics
in the U.S. are twofold. First, there is a clear need for additional research to better understand thedemands for services from the Hispanic population segment as their aging accelerates. And
second, Hispanics themselves need to raise their voice and become more active in age-related
matters, such as lobbying for adequate plans and the programs that need to be designed andimplemented in the near future.
The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarilyreflect opinions of the ICSW Management Committee.
 Tackling Inequalities beyond 2015 through Social Protection
One of the most informative and politically significant high-level ministerial panels organized as partof the 68th UN General Assembly discussions on accelerating the achievement of the MDGs and thepost 2015-developmnent framework turned out to be one entitled “Tackling Inequalities beyond
2015 through Social Protection”, co-sponsored by Belgium, Brazil and the ILO, which took place on
26 September in New York. Opening the discussion, Guy Ryder, Director-General of theInternational Labour Organization, underscored that social protection policies are accelerating
progress on several MDGs. He concentrated on three key messages:A) social protection policies address not only the symptoms of poverty, social exclusion andinequality, but also some of their underlying structural causes; that is why such policies are a
powerful tool for connecting the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability ina mutually reinforcing way;B) While some institutions see social protection as a safety net---temporary, needs-based, focusedon the most vulnerable people, residual, minimalist and compensatory, the ILO vision of social
protection is not one of a sparsely woven net, but of a solid, rights-based social protection floor,
which should be permanent, universal and adapted to specific countries’ conditions and constraints;C) a social protection floor is affordable even in low income countries, and what is more—in thelonger run, effective country-specific social protection floors pay for themselves by enhancing theproductivity of the labor force, the resilience of society and the stability of the political process andstrengthening growth.
The speakers who took the floor— Jean-Pascal Labille, the Minister of Development Cooperation ofBelgium, Carlos Antonio da RochasParanhos, the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, andRomulo Paes, the Director of the World Centre for Sustainable Development, RIO+ Centre/UNDP -were able to highlight various aspects of social protection as one of the foundations for inclusive,
equitable and sustainable development. Discussing the lessons of the social protection policies incountries of Latin America and Caribbean, Romulo Paes spoke about some specific social protection
schemes that had benefited from a period of sustained economic growth and had amplified efforts
to reduce poverty and inequality, while expanding the fiscal space for social protection; they had
also grown in terms of coverage and budgets and had survived electoral cycles. The conditional
cash transfer programs, in his words, “became the backbone of the Latin American countries’
systems of social assistance policies”, including such objectives as breaking the intergenerationaltransmission of poverty “through health care and education, and the incorporation of a contract
with beneficiary households, with payments conditioned on compliance with predetermined coresponsibilities”.
During the discussion, IolandaCintura, the Minister of Women and Social Action of Mozambique,lucidly described her country's experience with increasing coverage of social protection schemes,presenting important arguments in support of such programs.
For more details, please go to the video recording at: http://webtv.un.org/watch/tacklinginequalities-beyond-2015-through-social-protection/2697993166001/
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Making the voices of the marginalized heard: The Participate Initiative

The Participate initiative—a project co-convened by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in
Sussex, UK, and the Beyond 2015 campaign and funded by the UK Government—was conceived asa way to get high-quality evidence on the reality of poverty at the ground level, bringing theperspectives of people living in poverty into the post-2015 debate and into the decision-making
processes. Using participatory research with the poorest as the basis for advocacy with decisionmakers, the project aims to ensure that marginalized people have a central role in holding decisionmakers to account in the post-2015 process. The researchers and activists working on the project
seek to understand how positive change can happen and what can be done to promote that change.
The recently released report called “Work with us: How people and organizations can catalysesustainable change” 3 summarizes some findings from the ongoing research in the context of theabove initiative.
The authors of the report make it clear from the very beginning that the aim of the research is notto get a representative sample of the priorities of people living in extreme poverty andmarginalization, or even to map their poverty; the aim is rather “to get an in-depth understandingof how people living in extreme poverty and marginalization experience change in their lives, andthe different factors that contribute to either negative or positive change. Most of all, this researchcalls us to bear witness to the depth of insight and intelligence of people who face extremely
difficult circumstances—and pay attention to what that can offer to those who seek to promotedevelopment”4. Looking at the dynamics of change, its triggers, obstacles and enabling factors, thereport makes an attempt to consider inequalities— which by their nature are often multiple,overlapping and mutually reinforcing-- as a crucial factor that prevents those living in poverty frombeing able to sustain positive change. Finally, in order to understand how inequalities can be shifted
to give way to meaningful change, an analysis of power and agency is presented focusing on how
people can catalyze change.
For additional information, please go to:
http://www.ids.ac.uk/publication/work-with-us-howpeople-and-organisations-can-catalyse-sustainable-change
Useful resources and links
Putting Green Growth at the Heart of Development
Rapidly accelerating growth in developing countries raises both the stakes for investments indevelopment and the opportunities to choose how to develop. Green models for development offer
an alternative that relies on and values natural assets that are essential for the well-being andlivelihoods of people in developing countries. Putting Green Growth at the Heart of Development, apublication of the OECD, explains why green growth is vital to securing a more sustainable futurefor developing countries. Covering 74 policies and measures from 37 countries and 5 regional
initiatives, this publication outlines an action-oriented twin-track agenda to guide national andinternational policies and practices to successfully tackle green growth.
For more details: www.oecd.org/dac/greengrowth

3 Burns, D; Howard, J; Lopez-Franco, E.; Shahrokh, T. and Wheeler, J. ( 2013) “Work with us: How people
and organizations can catalyse sustainable change”, Brighton: IDS

4Ibid, page 11

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Who will be Accountable? Human Rights and the Post-2015 Development Agenda
This publication is a joint effort of Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights(OHCHR) and the Centre for Economic and Social Rights (CESR). Human rights can inform ourunderstanding of accountability in the context of negotiations towards a post-2015 development
agreement by strengthening its constituent elements: responsibility, answerability andenforceability. In relation to the new global development goals (including the “sustainabledevelopment goals”, as agreed at the 2012 United Nations Conference on SustainableDevelopment), in particular, accountability mechanisms should take more account of human rights
standards, as well as human rights methods of monitoring and evaluation and, where needed,redress and sanction.
For more information please go to:
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/MDG/Pages/MDGPost2015Agenda.aspx

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