MA Cumulative Disadvantage

There can be either cumulative advantage or cumulative disadvantage. Too often MA are the unfortunate recipients of cumulative disadvantage. The idea of cultural disadvantage is that a person – usually those from poor working class backgrounds – finds that very early in life they acquire a job that may lack benefits, or a pension plan that, over time, can accumulate and place that person at a socioeconomic disadvantage when compared to someone else who may have been fortunate enough to acquire a better job with greater benefits. (Stoller and Gibson 127) However, cumulative disadvantage need not only occur in the realm of employment. Cumulative disadvantage can begin when a person is required to attend an inferior school, born to parents who are not fluent in the dominant language, must eat foods that are poor in nutritional value, or who may just have been raised in a household with abusive parents. For the elderly, cumulative disadvantage is of significant concern as their cumulative disadvantage can place them in a situation of tremendous need. “The worst off one-fifth of the elderly (disproportionately unmarried women, minorities, and the physically impaired) receives 5.5% of the elderly's total resources, whereas the best off one-fifth receives 46%.Equalizing effects of Social Security are more than outweighed by private pensions, asset income, and other sources”. (Shea) With the aging of the body, and retirement inevitable, cumulative disadvantage can place the elderly in great jeopardy of living in poverty, or greater poverty if they are already in poverty. “Forty-seven percent of older Mexican Americans live below or near the poverty level (Parra and Espino); these elders tend to be female, recent immigrants, and illiterate in English and to have the least education”. (Suarez and Ramirez)

Crystal S. Shea D. Cumulative advantage, cumulative disadvantage, and inequality among elderly people. Gerontologist. 1990;30:437–443. [Pub Med]

Parra, E.O., and D.V. Espino, 1192 “Barriers to Health Care Access Faced by Elderly Mexican Americans.” Pp. 171-77 in Hispanic Aged Mental Health. Ed. T.L. Brink. New York: Haworth

Stoller, Eleanor Palo, and Rose Campbell Gibson. Worlds Of Difference. 3. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 2000. 127-281. Print.

Suares, L., A. G. Ramirez. 1998. :Hispanic/Latino Health and Disease.” Pp. 115-37 in Promoting Health in Multicultural Populations: A Handbook for Practitioners, ed. R M. Huff and M.V. Kline. Thousand Oaks, Calif,: Sage