Uncovering connections between ageism and child-centric care

Drawing on personal reflections of my research experience on eldercare in East Asia, I suggest some directions for future research on demographic patterns and social welfare that complicate the concepts of care work and filial piety in understanding the population. Since the global pandemic has made its mark, existential anxieties grounded in the coupling of declining fertility rates and rising elderly dependence (lengthening lifespans amidst advances in medical technology) are running high. In this broader social problematic, I advocate for colleagues especially in East Asia to unpack the social dynamics of age relations and the specific predicaments of eldercare amidst an increasing overreliance on foreign domestic workers for live-in eldercare. The literature on changing trends of eldercare policy and practice is highly contextual and dynamic, and thus does not have a one-size-fits-all model. Nonetheless, broader commonalities in the commodification of family care, including its rising privatization and outsourcing to paid market options, leaves much to be uncovered across diverse cultural contexts and geographical locations. Crucially, ageism in market society is openly recognized in Western cultural contexts but less so, if at all, among East Asian populations where Confucian virtues of filial piety in (stay-at-home/live-in) care take precedence. In this paper, I weave together fieldwork observations and secondary literature to suggest that there is much analytical merit in pushing the boundaries of social reproduction concepts that make room for later-life issues.