Can I Keep My Job? Adult Children Caring for their Elderly Parents

In the 1970s, studies started showing to what extent public services can support parents when it comes to combining caring for their children with participation in employment. Only in the 1990s did researchers begin to focus on the impact adult children's caring for their elderly parents can have on their participation in the labour market. According to research, the need (or wish) to care for older parents can lead to adult children losing their jobs, more absence from work, increased use of part-time work or more difficulty concentrating at work (due to being worried) and negative effects on productivity, promotion and salary.

Adult children are important care providers, most of the non-professional care is provided by daughters of older people. In other words, a great many women "in their fifties and sixties are now both working and having to care for their parents", hence "more likely than men to withdraw completely from the labour market" or work fewer hours - either because they need the time to care for the parent(s) or because of health problems resulting from attempts to combine care work with job. "Public expenditures on eldercare appear to affect both intergenerational support and female labour market participation."

Gautun and Brett (2017) investigated the connection between adult children's attendance at work and public care services for older people. 

We test the hypothesis that the detrimental effect on attendance at work of having an older parent in need of care is moderated (reduced) by the parent’s use of a public nursing homes, possibly also by home care services.

The study was carried out in Norway (n = 529, employees aged 45 to 65). A majority of respondents (80%) had provided support to their parent(s) in mostly practical form, e.g. purchases or transportation. 16% ha given nursing assistance. 58% of those reporting to have helped their parent(s) during the past year said that it was difficult to combine care and work. 

The results are interesting and probably not extremely surprising:

Institutional care for older people in need of care (i.e. nursing homes) was associated with improved work attendance among their children—their daughters in particular. Data also indicated a moderating effect: the link between the parents’ reduced health and reduced work attendance among the children was weaker if the parent lived in a nursing home. However, the results were very different for home-based care: data indicated no positive effects on adult children’s work attendance when parents received non-institutionalised care of this kind. Overall, the results suggest that extending public care service to older people can improve their children’s ability to combine work with care for parents. However, this effect seems to require the high level of care commonly provided by nursing homes. Thus, the current trend towards de-institutionalising care in Europe (and Norway in particular) might hamper work attendance among care-giving adult children, women in particular. Home care services to older people probably need to be extended if they are intended as a real alternative to institutional care.

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- Gautun, H. & Brett, C. (2017). Caring too much? Lack of public services to older people reduces attendance at work among their children. European Journal of Ageing, 14, 155-166,, link
- photograph by Dorothea Lange (1938) via

Time Banks and the Caring Currency

Fureai Kippu is the (inflation-free since credits are units of time) caring currency in Japan, obtained by those who take care of the elderly, spent by them when they are in need of care. Part of the inspiration came from Teruko Mizushima who launched the Volunteer Labour Bank in 1973. The premise of her programme: A "woman's autonomy fluctuates during ther lifetime." When childbearing and childrearing, she needs to borrow time from others while in later motherhood, she might have additional time. Mizushima proposed a system of depositing and withdrawing these resources (Sugiyama Lebra, 1984).

Time banking is a concept based on reciprocity that ensures providing and receiving services in a community. It creates social interaction and (re)connection to communities and by doing so helps maintain physical and mental health, makes sure that vulnerable and isolated elderly people can be reached, provides active life in retirement, reduces costs of the health care system. Regions or cities for instance in Japan, China, Taiwan, Switzerland, and the United States have already introduced it.

Retired persons volunteering provide a few hours of service to help the elderly which ranges from accompanying them to hospital, dog-walking to bringing meals.  All services are equally valued (Valor & Papaoikonomou, 2016). By volunteering, people earn and bank in the hours of credit which can later - when old - be used to purchase services from others. In other words, time is banked and used when needed (Ng & Fong, 2019). This approach means contributing to the "Big Society" with an ageing population (Harashi, 2012), contributing to the well-being and empowerment of the community. Time banks are social innovation (Valor & Papaoikonomou, 2016) and might change the image of older persons (Sultana & Locoro, 2016).

In Hong Kong, time banks are changing society from a recipient to a participant one. In 2017, a welfare counciel launched a three-year-banking project in one of the districts aiming to promote elderly to support each other and to improve relationships with neighbours (Ng & Fong, 2019). It developed globally in the 1980s and in the UK in the late 1990s (Gregory, 2014). In the past years, more and more time banks emerged in Spain (Valor & Papaoikonomou, 2016). 

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- Gregory, L. (2014). Resilience or Resistance) Time Banking in the Age of Austerity. Political Science Journal of Contemporary European Studies, link
- Harashi, M. (2012). Japan's Fureai Kippu Time-banking in Elderly Care: Origins, Development, Challenges and Impact. Political Science, link
- Ng, T., Yim, N. & Fong, B. (2019). Time banking for elderly in Hong Kong : current practice and challenges. CAHMR Working Paper Series 2(1).
- Sugiyama Lebra, T. (1984). Japanese Women. Constraint and Fulfillment. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
- Sultana, T. & Locoro, A  (2016). No More Throw-away 'Elderly' People: Building a New Image of Ageing via a Time Accounting System. In Markus Garschall, Theo Hamm, Dominik Hornung, Claudia Müller, Katja Neureiter, Marén Schorch, Lex van Velsen (Eds.), International Reports on Socio-Informatics (IRSI), Proceedings of the COOP 2016 - Symposium on challenges and experiences in designing for an ageing society. (Vol. 13, Iss. 3, pp. 35-42), link
- Valor, C. & Papaoikonomou, E. (2016). Time Banking in Spain. Exploring their Structure, Management and Users' Profile. Revista Internacional de Sociologia RIS, 74(1), link
- photograph by Dorothea Lange via

World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought

According to a report published by the United Nations, women - who account for about half of agricultural employment across low-income countries - are more susceptible than men to negative consequences of desertification and drought ... the very reason: sexism. 

A lack of land rights (in more than 100 countries, women are denied the right to inherit property belonging to their husbands) and social equity bars women fom accessing capital, training and assistance which in turn makes or keeps them powerless. Often, they are not recognised as farmers due to gender norms. The lack of recognition keeps them from having access to protection against climate-related damages (e.g. access to information: climate forecasts are often shared in meetings women cannot attend). Women struggle to secure loans and credit to recover from these damages particularly if they have no land titles or assets. Having no financial resources and no technology also mean that there is no adaptation to sustainable land management practices to prevent further climate damages. Despite playing a vital role in the global food system, women's contribution is often unrecognised and unpaid (via).

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photograph of a Dust Bowl refugee taken by Dorothea Lange ("A mother in California who with her husband and her two children will be returned to Oklahoma by the Relief Administration. This family had lost a two-year-old baby during the winter as a result of exposure.") via, caption via

The Stop AAPI Hate Report

Stop AAPI Hate (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders) received 3.795 reports from March 2020 to February 2021. The types of discrimination reported are verbal harassment (68.1%), shunning (20.5%), physical assault (11.1%), civil rights violations like e.g. workplace discrimination (8.5%), and online harassment (6.8%).

More findings of interest: Women report hate incidents 2.3 times more often than men, Chinese are the largest group to report experiencing hate, and businesses (35.4%) are the main site of discrimination, followed by public streets (25.3%), and public parks (9.8%) (Jeung et al., 2021).

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- Jeung, R., Yellow Horse, A., Popovic, T. & Lim, R. (2021). Stop AAPI Hate National Report, link
- photograph by Dorothea Lange via

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

“We know by now how to photograph poor people. What we don’t know is how to photograph affluence – whose other face is poverty.”
Dorothea Lange



On 17 October 1987, a hundred thousand people gathered in Paris, where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948, to "honour the victims of extreme poverty, violence and hunger" as poverty is a violation of human rigts. Since then, 17 October has been the day dedicated to the eradication of poverty, the day we show solidarity with the poor, acknowledge the struggle of people living in poverty, make their concerns heard, and use their expertise to fight poverty (via).

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photograph by Dorothea Lange via

The Desexualisation of the Asian American Man

The construction of Asian masculinity is one defined by otherness, a contrast to Western masculinity. One rather disturbing stereotype is the effeminate Asian male. The body is stigmatised, the smoother skin and lack of hair associated with a boyish and feminine look (Atkins, 2005). Asian (American) male sexuality is probably best described by a "discourse of nothingness", his absence or inferiority in the coloniser's sexual hierarchy, in films often portrayed as a "sexually impotent voyeur or pervert" (Kee, 1998), generally castrated by media (Eng, 2001).



"The West thinks of itself as masculine - big guns, big industry, big money - so the East is feminine - weak, delicate, poor."
Liling (cited in Atkins, 2005)

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- Atkins, G. L. (2005). My Man Fridae: Re-Producing Asian Masculinity. Seattle Journal for Social Justice, 4(1), 67-100.
-Eng, D. I. (2001). Racial Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America. Durham: Duke University Press.
- Kee, J. (1998). (Re)sexualizing the Desexualized Asian Male in the Works of Ken Chu and Michael Joo; link
- photograph by Dorothea Lange via

International Migrants Day

"Migration is a powerful driver of economic growth, dynamism and understanding. It allows millions of people to seek new opportunities, benefiting communities of origin and destination alike.



But when poorly regulated, migration can intensify divisions within and between societies, expose people to exploitation and abuse, and undermine faith in government.
This month, the world took a landmark step forward with the adoption of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
Backed with overwhelming support by the membership of the United Nations, the Compact will help us to address the real challenges of migration while reaping its many benefits.
The Compact is people-centered and rooted in human rights.
It points the way toward more legal opportunities for migration and stronger action to crack down on human trafficking.
On International Migrants Day, let us take the path provided by the Global Compact: to make migration work for all."
António Guterres

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photograph by Dorothea Lange via

Asian-Americans: Facing Less Prejudice When Overweight

"We found that there was a paradoxical social benefit for Asian-Americans, where extra weight allows them to be seen as more American and less likely to face prejudice directed at those assumed to be foreign."
Sapna Cheryan



According to a study carried out by Handron et al., heavier Asian-Americans are seen as more US-American than those of normal weight and less likely to be viewed as being in the country illegally.

Interestingly, only Asian-Americans are considered to be more US-American when they were overweight:

"Asian-Americans but not white, black, or Latino Americans are associated with foreign countries that are not seen as stereotypically overweight, which enables greater weight to signal an American identity." (via)

"Can being overweight, a factor that commonly leads to stigmatization, ironically buffer some people from race-based assumptions about who is American? In 10 studies, participants were shown portraits that were edited to make the photographed person appear either overweight (body mass index, or BMI > 25) or normal weight (BMI < 25). A meta-analysis of these studies revealed that overweight Asian individuals were perceived as significantly more American than normal-weight versions of the same people, whereas this was not true for White, Black, or Latino individuals. A second meta-analysis showed that overweight Asian men were perceived as less likely to be in the United States without documentation than their normal-weight counterparts. A final study demonstrated that weight stereotypes about presumed countries of origin shape who is considered American. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that perceptions of nationality are malleable and that perceived race and body shape interact to inform these judgments."
Handron et al., 2017

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- Handron, C., Kirby, T. A., Wang, J., Matskewich, H. E. & Cheryan, S. (2017). Unexpected Gains. Being Overweight Buffers Asian Americans From Prejudice Against Foreigners. Psychological Science, 28(9), 1214-1227.
- photograph by Dorothea Lange (1942) via, title: "Oakland, Calif., Mar. 1942. A large sign reading "I am an American" placed in the window of a store, at [401 - 403 Eighth] and Franklin streets, on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descent to evacuate from certain West Coast areas. The owner, a University of California graduate, will be housed with hundreds of evacuees in War Relocation Authority centers for the duration of the war" (literally via)

Narrative images: Waiting for the bus

"May 2, 1942—Byron, California. Third generation of American children of Japanese ancestry in crowd awaiting the arrival of the next bus which will take them from their homes to the Assembly center." (via)



"Mother and baby await evacuation bus. Posted on wall are schedules listing names of families, buses to which they are assigned, and times of departure. May 9, 1942. Centerville, California." (via)



Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), known as "America's greatest documentary photographer" (via), took photographs of US-Americans of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 - photographs that were "quietly censored by military commanders" who disapproved of Lange's work. Her prints were not actively distributed, in fact, many of them were marked as "impounded". After the war, the photographs were deposited in the National Archives where they remained unseen for decades and were released only in 2006.
Over 120.000 persons - including children - had to evacuate their homes and businesses and were relocated to camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards for a couple of years.
The War Relocation Authority recruited Dorothea Lange to create a photographic record of the evacuation and relocation. Lange accepted despite - or because of - her moral objection to prison camps (via and via and via). She never had a comfortable feeling about the war relocation job but hoped to expose what the government was doing to its citizens (via)

"Ms. Lange’s critique is especially impressive given the political mood of the time."
Linda Gordon

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photographs by Dorothea Lange via and via