Who Will Care for Us? - by Ronald Angel & Jacqueline L Angel (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"An important contribution to the on-going national dialogue concerning the need for planning for an increasingly aged population and its impact on our social, political, medical, economic institutions."
--Wisconsin Bookwatch
"Based on their assessments of the levels of need for the long-term care among African-American, Latino, and non-Latino white older persons, the authors offer viable and attractive possible alternatives to institutionalization in the long-term care of the elderly."
--Nurse Practitioner
"A major contribution. Should be a part of every course on social gerontology, long-term care, the demography of aging, or formal/informal support networks of the elderly."
--Robert Joseph Taylor, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
America is getting older. By the year 2010, almost one in five Americans will be 65 years of age or older.The combined forces of low fertility and longer life spans among all racial and ethnic groups have resulted in a disproportionate increase in the number of individuals over 65 and an even faster increase in the proportion of those individuals over eighty-five. As a result, the nation faces an unprecedented challenge in addressing the economic, medical, and long-term care needs of this older population at the same time that it assures the welfare of the young. The growth of the cost of the long-term care of the elderly is one of the major forces behind recent increases in Medicaid expenditures, and any reformed health care financing system will have to find ways of providing high quality long-term care to older Americans at a reasonable cost.
In a racially and culturally diverse nation like the United States, official policy regarding the care of the elderly simply cannot be based on the assumption that the elderly are a culturally and socially monolithic population. The cultural, social, and economic situations of the elderly simply differ too greatly and the family's role in their care is affected by important cultural and social factors.
In Who Will Care for Us? Ronald J. and Jacqueline L. Angel argue that policies based on the assumption of a homogenous population will fail to take advantage of the opportunities that ethnic and cultural diversity offer for the long-term care of the elderly. The authors examine the great racial and ethnic diversity among the elderly in the contemporary U.S. in terms of living arrangements, economic well-being, and reliance on formal and family-based sources of support. Based on their assessments of the levels of need for long-term care among black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white older persons, they offer viable and attractive possible alternatives to institutionalization in the long-term care of the elderly.

From the Back Cover

America is getting older. By the year 2010, almost one in five Americans will be sixty-five or older. The population of the United States is not only aging, but aging rapidly. The combined forces of low fertility and longer life spans have resulted in a disproportionate increase in the number of Americans over sixty-five and an even faster increase in the proportion of those over eighty-five.

Review Quotes

"A compelling look at the power of the media from an award-winning journalist who fearlessly and passionately addresses critical issues confronting African-American journalists working for mainstream newspapers and magazines." -"Essence",

"In her eloquent take on media Eurocentrism, Pamela Newkirk observes that anti-African exclusion very much characterizes the major media. . . . An hermeneutical tour-de-force."-"New York Amsterdam News",

"In many ways, today's news business suffers from a terrible case of isolationism, not just racial but socioeconomic. If every news editor in America read Within the Veil, it could transform dynamics within the newsroom and what appears on the screen and printed page. And for everyone else--the informed citizens of America who wonder how the media works--this book, with its gripping behind-the-scenes newsroom dramas, is a damn good read."-Farai Chideya, author of "The Color of Our Future" and "Don't Believe the Hype", and editor of "PopandPolitics.com"

"In telling the stories of forgotten pioneers like Lester Walton, George Schuyler, Earl Brown, Ted Poston, and Ben Holman, and in detailing the pressures felt and obstacles overcome by more recent generations of African-American journalists, Pamela Newkirk's Within the Veil makes a valuable contribution to the history of the American press."-Ben Yagoda, associate professor of journalism, University of Delaware, author of "About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made", and coeditor of "The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of American Journalism"

"Pamela Newkirk is uniquely equipped to undertake a searching examination of the American institution that distorts perceptions of some of us for consumption by the rest of us. In Within the Veil, Newkirk renders compelling evidence that American news media have exacerbated more than ameliorated America's complex racial dilemma."-Randall Robinson, author of "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks"