Demographic changes in Latin America and the Caribbean have brought with them an acceleration in population ageing. This process has entailed a number of social and economic changes, including transformations in family organization and composition, family and non-family support networks, economic participation of older people and changes to their living, housing and health conditions (CEPAL/CELADE, Manual de indicadores sobre la calidad de vida en la vejez, CELADE, 2006; Huenchuan, Envejecimiento, derechos humanos y políticas públicas, CEPAL, 2009). All these aspects are closely related to the quality of life of the older population. The study of quality of life in old age and its relation to the environment has come to the fore during recent decades. According to CEPAL/CELADE (Manual de indicadores sobre la calidad de vida en la vejez, CELADE, 2006), the concept of favorable environments has to do with socio-cultural and environmental conditions that allow for dignified and secure ageing in one's community of origin. These environments can be analyzed across two dimensions: social and physical, as determinants of active ageing for quality of later life. Our main aim in this chapter is to analyze the physical and social environments in which older people spend their lives, as well as their satisfaction with those environments, in accordance with their different sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The empirical approach for this study is quantitative; we use data from the 2016 Survey on Living Conditions of Older People in Mexico. The main findings included older people expressing satisfaction with their dwellings and neighborhoods, although there is some variation in this respect when individual characteristics (schooling and marital status) are considered along with the characteristics of the older people's housing. On the other hand, when social environments are analyzed it is seen that the family support given and received is very important among the older population in Mexico. The variables relating to satisfaction with family and friends mainly concern level of education and family arrangements.

Abstract As in other nations, the aging of the population of Mexico presents many challenges specially in dependence. These social and political changes occur in the context of a series of interacting political, social and demographic transformations. At the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st Centuries civil society organizations have begun to define a third sector. A growing desire of individuals to exercise more direct democracy, has accompanied the growth of identity politics and the rise of groups representing women, indigenous populations, racial and religious minorities, environmental interests, older persons, and others. These groups have changed public discourse and today give individuals greater capacity to demand their basic human and social rights. This paper reviews the impact of these changes on older people and multidimensional care.

Demographic ageing in Mexico is an increasing phenomenon. With this, the demands of care for this kind of population become a matter of fact. Historically, the care has been assigned to women, which emphasizes prevailing gender inequalities. Women who care for elder are motivated by the recognition of a need, responsibility, provision of care work, and the reception of care work. These motivations arise in different forms and contexts where family and emotional ties are present. This article shows some stories of female caregivers to examine the process that implies providing care and their motivations to assume this role. The issue of the rights of the elderly is also incorporated from the legal field to reflect on the need to include this issue in our country's public policies.

Este artículo tiene como objetivo hacer una revisión del debate académico y político sobre la creación de un Sistema Nacional de Cuidados (SNC) en el que la perspectiva de género y los derechos humanos sean claves. Para ello, se hace una revisión bibliográfica de los últimos 20 años en la investigación realizada en México, América Latina y el Caribe sobre el trabajo de los cuidados y el derecho al cuidado en el envejecimiento. La propuesta es verlo desde el curso de vida, con los enfoques de género y derechos humanos. El trabajo contiene recomendaciones de políticas públicas para la creación de un SNC.

Critical Human Ecology is a contextual framework that theorises near environments as the key contexts of rural ageing. By incorporating global contexts into Critical Human Ecology theory, this chapter illustrates how such contexts provide constraints (and a few opportunities) for rural people and settings. Older persons are one of the groups that has received global attention. The chapter aims to address this theoretical gap through: Incorporating global contexts into Critical Human Ecology Theory, considering how macro contexts create constraints and opportunities in the lives of older people. Grounding this global theorising with case examples from Malawi, India, Mexico and Israel, that illustrate the immense diversity in rural communities and their older residents. Critical Human Ecology Theory was developed to draw together theoretical work from Environmental Gerontology and Human Ecology on important contexts in the lives of older persons and from Critical Theory that stresses the need to challenge discourses that foster inequities.

America's inner cities, particularly those in older industrial metropolitan areas, have declined sharply in both population and employment over the past two decades. How much of this change is due to technological advances in transportation, communication, and manufacturing? How much of it is due to the changing racial composition of the central cities? Can any set of public policies retard or reverse the decline of the industrial cities?This book presents an interdisciplinary collection of papers addressing these questions. In the introduction, editor Paul E. Peterson discusses the ways in which adverse economic and racial changes interact and urges more realistic federal policies to counteract these changes. In Part 1, The Processes of Urban Growth and Decline, sociologist John D. Kasarda analyzes the growing mismatch between inner-city jobs and residents, and geographer Brian J. L. Berry discusses the economics of inner-city gentrification. Racial change is the subject of Part II: sociologist Elijah Anderson depicts race relations in a gentrifying inner-city neighborhood; sociologist William J. Wilson delineates the social and economic problems of inner-city blacks; and political scientist Gary Orfield calls for bold efforts to reverse the continuing urban pattern of racial segregation. Part III looks at the way cities have responded to economic and racial change. Economist Kenneth A. Small discusses the impact of transportation policy; political scientist Herbert Jacob finds that increasing efforts to control urban crime have not been effective; and sociologist Terry Nichols Clark emphasizes the effect of political factors on the fiscal condition of cities. Economist Anthony Downs, reviewing the issues raised by the other authors, sees little hope for racial integration as the central social strategy for solving urban problems, but does see hope in the internal resources of America's minority communities.

Introduction: Active ageing and quality of life are concepts not easily defined and implemented and assumed in official and public discourse as goals to be achieved for a society that wishes to improve large groups lives such as older persons. Neither official documents defining public policies nor social discourses offer commonly accepted rules for assessing them. This chapter specifically aims at examining how civil society organizations (CSOs) position active ageing and quality of life in their policy documents as tools to exert political pressure in the design of three fundamental dimensions of public policy: health, financial security and physical and social environment.Materials and method: The research uses documents produced by Latin American CSOs that implement their role in the construction of policies relating to active ageing and quality of life in Latin America and the Caribbean (Santiago de Chile, Brasilia, Tres RÚos and YpacaraÚ) and that derive from the agreements at the World Assembly on Ageing held in Madrid in 2002.Results: The initial hypothesis is that CSOs have a recognized influence on the creation of public policies, but their real impact is limited as a result of the dominant role of government. Documentary analysis will permit an assessment of this role and the proposal of a more advanced and effective position for CSOs in the creation and implementation of public policies on active ageing.

Pensar en los retos que atraviesan los distintos países de la Latinoamérica debido al tema migratorio, implica considerar líneas de investigación que van desde lo que sucede en los países que reciben población migrante, migración interna, hasta los que son principalmente expulsores de población. En este libro se resaltan algunas de las que se viven en México, entendiendo que se trata de un país tanto de recepción de migrantes, tránsito y retorno como de inmigración, por lo que se enfatizan algunos de los fenómenos que se viven en el país en la actualidad: la discriminación y xenofobia que se presenta a raíz de la llegada de extranjeros; el desplazamiento forzado ocasionado por el incremento de la violencia; los procesos de inclusión/exclusión; las problemáticas derivadas del retorno de jóvenes, que tienen relación con el sistema educativo actual del país, y la atención a los adultos mayores mexicanos residentes en Estados Unidos. La intención del presente trabajo es presentar un diagnóstico general de algunas de las problemáticas que se derivan de los movimientos migratorios actuales en México. En su mayoría, se puede observar como eje transversal el reconocimiento de la presencia de los distintos actores involucrados en los diferentes movimientos de población, que dadas las condiciones políticas del país y su cercanía con Estados Unidos, dicho reconocimiento se da en ocasiones sólo “en papel”, pero la realidad que viven tanto nacionales comoextranjeros que se mueven en el país es otra.

El envejecimiento demográfico en México es un fenómeno cada vez más creciente. A la par se incrementan, sin ser una generalidad, las demandas de cuidado para atender a esta población. Históricamente este rol ha sido asignado a las mujeres, aspecto que está relacionado con las desigualdades de género en la actualidad. Las mujeres que realizan cuidados para la vejez lo hacen a partir de distintas motivaciones: el reconocimiento de una necesidad, la responsabilización, o la prestación y recepción de los trabajos de cuidado. Todas ellas derivadas de las formas y contextos en que se desarrollan los vínculos familiares y afectivos. En este artículo se muestran, a través de relatos de mujeres cuidadoras, las motivaciones para asumir el rol y el proceso que atraviesan durante su práctica de cuidado. También se incorpora el tema de los derechos de las personas mayores desde el ámbito jurídico para reflexionar sobre la necesidad de incluir esta cuestión en las políticas públicas de nuestro país.

Today, social rights, which include the basic material requirements for a dignified life, are at the core of the new human rights agenda. Recent international conventions that address the problems of poverty, discrimination, isolation, and social exclusion among older persons have produced general principles that affirm their social, as well as political rights. Retirement security and healthcare represent two of the core pillars of the welfare state as it evolved during the twentieth century. Today most middle and even low-income nations have formal employment-based retirement systems, although many of those remain seriously inadequate. In this chapter we focus on the sources of retirement security among older individuals in Latin America, with a particular focus on Mexico. Mexico introduced an employment-based defined-benefit retirement scheme in 1943. That system was plagued by numerous problems, and even after radical reforms, including a switch to private defined-contribution plans, problems of labor force informality, low contribution densities, and low replacement rates persist. As a result, Mexico, like many other nations, has introduced state and federal noncontributory pensions, upon which most older individuals rely. Although these pensions address the immediate problem of extreme poverty among older persons, they are minimal and reintroduce the long-term problems of fiscal unsustainability. We discuss the growing role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in advocating for the social and human rights of older persons.

In Mexico, the increase in older people and their economic and health situation are elements that transform the dynamics of the families in which they reside. In Latin American families, particularly in Mexican families, co-residence is considered a protection factor for older relatives. However, this trend has changed over time, increasing the number of older people living alone. This population could receive some form of transfer and care from their family members who live outside the household or other non-family persons, but also it could happen that not all older persons living alone receive support and that their socio-economic conditions, along with deterioration in health place them in a situation of vulnerability. This study analyzes the support networks that older persons have in different types of households. Our hypothesis is that, for older people, cohabitation with relatives provide a wider network of support in comparison to those living alone.

El 1° de octubre de 1998 se inició el Año Internacional de los Adultos Mayores; la Organización de las Naciones Unidas propuso como lema “Por una sociedad para todas las edades”, frase que busca exhortar a los gobiernos locales y nacionales al reconocimiento de la población adulta mayor, que cada vez se incrementa en la humanidad. Desde mi perspectiva, ese lema invita a pensar, desde las ciencias sociales, a una sociedad inclusiva y para todas las edades, o dicho en otras palabras, sugiere incorporar la categoría edad como fuente explicativa de la desigualdad social. Plantea considerar a la edad no sólo desde la noción cronológica sino como lo que se ha denominado edad social.

Esta publicacion es financiada por recursos del proyecto “Programa de Fortalecimiento de la Calidad Educativa SEP (2017)”

En México, el incremento de la población adulta mayor y la situación económica y de salud que esta presenta son elementos que transforman la dinámica de las familias en las que residen. En las familias latinoamericanas, particularmente las mexicanas, la corresidencia suele ser un factor de protección para los familiares envejecidos. No obstante, esta tendencia ha ido modificándose en el tiempo; cada vez se observan más personas mayores viviendo solas. Si bien es cierto que esta población podría recibir algún tipo de transferencias económicas y atenciones de sus familiares que viven fuera del hogar o de personas no familiares, también puede ocurrir que no todas las personas mayores que viven solas reciban apoyo, y que su condición socioeconómica, junto con los deterioros en la salud, las coloque en una situación de vulnerabilidad. Este estudio tiene como objetivo analizar las redes de apoyo con las que cuentan las personas mayores en distintos tipos de hogares. La hipótesis planteada es que la cohabitación con familiares permitirá que las personas mayores cuenten con una red más amplia de apoyo en comparación con quienes residen solos/as.

El panorama que enfrenta la población adulta mayor de México en la actualidad es desfavorable, la mayoría no cuenta con ingresos derivados de una pensión y tampoco con seguridad social. Hay esfuerzos que han tratado de contribuir a aliviar esta situación, como el Programa de Apoyo Directo al Adulto Mayor, puesto en marcha en Nuevo León, en 2004, que busca mejorar el bienestar de los adultos mayores en condición de pobreza. El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar las características de los beneficiarios del programa de 2004 a 2014; para hacerlo se aplicó una encuesta representativa a dichas personas, y se encontraron cambios en sus condiciones de vida, sobre todo en aspectos relacionados con la salud. El estudio representa uno de los esfuerzos más recientes en Nuevo León por conocer el funcionamiento del programa, aunque una de sus limitaciones es no saber si el cambio en las condiciones de esta población se deriva del apoyo económico recibido, lo cual en parte se debe a la forma en cómo se diseñó e implementó. Se concluye que no hay congruencia entre los objetivos y el cumplimiento del programa.