Suchergebnisse

Using data from the General Social Survey the current study examines period and cohort differences in attitudes toward welfare state spending for old age programs. Using the Torres-Gil classification system, the study uses cross-sectional data from the 1984–2004 waves of data to identify any differences by period and cohort group membership in whether or not it is the government's responsibility to provide a decent standard of living for older adults, whether or not respondents felt that the current level of spending for Social Security was adequate, and whether or not respondents were willing to make sacrifices such as paying higher taxes to pay for greater retirement benefits. The findings suggest that the generational conflict that many suggested might arise has not come to fruition. Indeed, the youngest cohorts in these analysis were the most likely to support higher taxes to pay for better retirement benefits. Perhaps more interesting were the findings that there were no significant period effects for whether or not the government was responsible for providing a decent standard of living but there were such effects when examining whether or not Social Security funding levels were adequate.

In response to the growing concern over the provision of long-term care to an ever-expanding older population, new methods of delivering services to older adults are constantly being developed. The development and expansion of long-term care via assisted living facilities (ALFs) is one approach that has proven surprisingly popular all across the nation. Despite the popularity of ALFs, relatively little appears to be known about the residents of these facilities. This article examines the racial and ethnic identities and certain other characteristics of residents in a stratified probability sample of assisted living facilities in central Florida, a region that contains one of the nation's densest populations of older adults. Fifty-nine facilities serving 1,805 residents were surveyed. Predictably, racial and ethnic minorities were significantly underrepresented among the residents of these facilities. Facilities serving relatively large minority populations were characterized by lower room rates and a larger proportion of beds set aside for Office of Social Services (OSS) residents (i.e., beds funded through state funds or by Medicaid). The general run of these findings suggests that as they have been implemented in central Florida, ALFs may well perpetuate preexisting socioeconomic inequalities among the aged population.