A new article co-authored by Dr. Flávia Andrade, PhD Program Director and Professor, has been published in Social Science & Medicine.
Close kin availability and mortality among older adults in Brazil discusses how Brazil is struggling with limited welfare infrastructure to support healthy aging, making spouses and adult children among the primary sources of support for a rapidly aging population. Declining fertility and marital transitions may threaten older adults’ health, raising a critical question:
Are there gender differences in older Brazilians’ mortality risks by partnership and parenthood status?
The study concluded that for both men and women who lack both traditional family ties, aging presents the highest mortality risks, but for men, having children and lacking a partner also elevate mortality risks. The study discusses these findings in the context of demographic and social changes in the availability of close kin and the potential opportunities to enhance survival among older adults in Brazil.
“Who will take care of us when we’re old? It’s one of the most universal questions we face—and for millions of older Brazilians, the answer is becoming less certain,” Dr. Andrade says. “Families are shrinking—marriages are dissolving, birth rates are falling, and adult children are moving away. Yet Brazil’s care infrastructure still assumes that families will shoulder the burden. Our research reveals what happens when they can’t. Older men without a partner die sooner, whether or not they have children. Older women face the highest mortality risk when they have neither a partner nor children. These are not just personal tragedies. They are a warning that traditional family safety nets are scrambling to provide care and that Brazil, like many other countries, urgently needs to discuss alternative ways to provide care for older adults.”