Effect of Acculturation and Mutuality on Family Loyalty Among Mexican American Caregivers of Elders

AbstractPurpose: Informal family care for elders is conventional in Mexican American communities despite increasing intergenerational gaps in filial values. In our study, we explored whether acculturation and dyadic mutuality, as perceived by Mexican American family caregivers, explain the caregivers' expectations of family loyalty toward elderly relatives.Design: A nonexperimental, correlational design with convenience sampling was used in El Paso, Texas, from October 2007 to January 2008.Methods: Three bilingual promotoras collected data from 193 Mexican American adult caregivers of community-dwelling elders using three scales designed for Mexican Americans: the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans Il-Short Form, the Mutuality Scale, and the Expectations of Family Loyalty of Children Toward Elderly Relatives Scale. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to analyze the data.Findings: Acculturation had a marginal effect (r = .21, p Conclusions: Although Mexican American caregivers with strong Mexican orientation may have high expectations of family loyalty toward elderly relatives, mutuality exhibits more significant effects on expectations. Among Mexican Americans, mutuality between the caregiving dyad, as perceived by caregivers, may be a better predictor of filial values than caregivers' acculturation alone.Clinical Relevance: It may be useful to incorporate the dual paradigm of acculturation and mutuality into immigrant family care for elderly relatives.Key wordsAcculturation, mutuality, family loyalty, caregivers, elderly, Mexican AmericanThe demographic profile in the United States has become older and more ethnically diverse. An example of the nation's changing demographics is the fast-growing population of older Hispanic or Latino Americans (Villa, Wallace, & Huynh-Hohnbaum, 2005-2006), which includes elderly Mexican Americans. Despite older Hispanic or Latino Americans' higher rate of disability compared with other ethnic immigrants in the United States (Blaum, West, & Haan, 2007), they tend to use fewer formal long-term care services (Crist & Speaks, 2011). One reason for this seeming contradiction is that Hispanic or Latino Americans' family loyalty toward elderly relatives exerts a protective effect on the elders' care and wellbeing, mirroring the "Hispanic paradox." That is, Hispanic or Latino Americans tend to have comparable health outcomes to, or in some cases better than, those of their U.S. White counterparts, even though they have lower income and education attainment (Blue & Fenelon, 2011). Family care likely shields the elderly from harms outside of the family, and elderly Hispanic or Latino Americans may thus perceive themselves healthy even though they may not necessarily be healthy.Contrary to the traditional Hispanic or Latino cultural norms, in which family unity is emphasized over individual needs and goals, it is well documented that exposure to American culture has weakened Hispanic or Latino Americans' tendency to care for their family members due to distance, mobility, and urbanization of this U.S. immigrant population (Kao, McHugh, & Travis, 2007). With quicker acculturation in the younger immigrant generation than that in the older generation, intergenerational gaps in filial values develop (Schwartz, Zamboanga, & Jarvis, 2007), diminishing the capacity of family care reserved for the elderly. In our study, we explored whether acculturation and dyadic mutuality, as perceived by Mexican American family caregivers, can explain the caregivers' expectations of family loyalty toward elderly relatives.Literature ReviewAccording to conventional wisdom, parental sacrifices generate filial obligations (Stuifbergen & Van Delden, 2011). …