The life-course path to care poverty: the cumulative advantages and disadvantages of older adults living in single-person households in İstanbul

Drawing on qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with older adults living in single-person households in İstanbul, this article employs a life-course perspective and cumulative advantages and disadvantages (CAD) framework as explanatory lenses to elucidate how care poverty is experienced and navigated within the fragmented welfare regime of Türkiye. The analysis presented here focuses on a nested subsample of eight participants aged 65 and over, selected from a broader data set of 36 semi-structured interviews, with the remaining data utilized to provide context and ensure data triangulation. By empirically focusing on the everyday lives of older adults, this article contributes to the academic literature on care poverty by illustrating how life-course trajectories and welfare regimes intersect in practice. Therefore, the main contribution of the article is that care poverty does not stem solely from the process of ageing or the household structure itself. In this regard, the findings support the indispensability of comprehensive and inclusive welfare policies addressing material and social-emotional care needs in later life.