Structural racialization of eldercare: How Black youth’s family-centric values expose systemic care gaps in aging policies
Original framing: “African American young adults favor family support when it comes to caring for older adults” — Phys.org
The study’s presentist framing erases the legacy of the 1935 Social Security Act, which explicitly excluded Black domestic workers—many of whom were eldercare providers—from benefits, forcing reliance on informal networks. Post-Civil Rights era divestment in Black communities (e.g., redlining, mass incarceration) further dismantled public care infrastructure, leaving families as the sole option. The 1996 welfare reform’s attack on Black single mothers also deepened economic precarity, making eldercare an unpaid labor expectation rather than a policy priority.
The study’s framing of Black young adults’ eldercare ‘preference’ obscures a century of state abandonment, where racial capitalism and neoliberal austerity have systematically dismantled public care infrastructure while exploiting Black women’s labor.
Historical precedents—from the 1935 Social Security Act’s exclusions to the 1996 welfare reforms—reveal how policy choices, not cultural choices, created this crisis. Cross-cultural comparisons to Indigenous *diné* models or Caribbean mutual aid networks expose the study’s myopia, while trickster readings like Coyote’s subversion of power lay bare the absurdity of praising resilience in the absence of alternatives. Solutions must move beyond incremental reforms like paid leave to reparative infrastructure funds, Indigenous-Black care alliances, and economic reparations for care labor—centering the marginalized voices (LGBTQ+ elders, disabled caregivers) erased by the original framing. The path forward lies in treating eldercare as a human right, not a cultural preference, by dismantling the systems that forced this ‘choice’ in the first place.