A difficulty arises however for those who have traditionally felt very personally responsible for providing their parents elder care, an increasingly difficult task both financially and culturally. In Chinese culture, for example, it's deeply engrained in younger generations that they will take care of the aging parents; however both here and abroad, more families are spread out geographically, increasingly with both spouses working, and with elders living longer--but with a slew of maladies--because of a medical assistance. These factors make the desire to care for aging parents at home, sometimes dedicated 24/7, an increasingly difficult reality. The increasing number of elders also presents cultural dilemmas, as it can be very uncomfortable for families to make the decision to put a parent in an assisted home rather than taking the care upon themselves; and once the decision is made, many older or first generations have special cultural and language needs and preferences that many facilities are not equipped for. However, with the number of Asians over 65 expected to grow to 2.5 million by 2020, there will only be more pressure on both families and care providers to respond to a more tailored and flexible system, both here and abroad (the large aging population has created elder care and assisted living communities in China, a once foreign and rare existence just years ago). As the population of older generation Asian Americans grow, the traditional cultural code of personally providing for ones elders is meeting modern day challenges.
ARTICLE: New York Times, January 2014
SITE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/as-asian-americans-age-their-children-face-cultural-hurdles.html
