Access to Health Care Among Three Cohorts of Older Americans Residing in a Rural State

Three cohorts of older Americans are examined to determine how they perceive the likelihood of being able to access health care in the future. A modified Andersen (1968) model provides the framework for the study. A representative sample of 2,404 noninstitutionalized midwestern older persons separated into three age cohorts (60–69, 70–79, and 80+) was used. Predisposing, enabling, and need factors were examined by logistic regression. Significant differences were found between age cohorts, with the perceptions of the oldest-old and the youngest-old appearing to be markedly more sensitive than those of the middle-old. Need factors of health and the respondents' perceptions of help they needed with instrumental activities of daily living, and enabling factors of community size and the barrier imposed by lack of transportation, combined to explain the perceptions of the oldest-old. For the youngest-old, the significant variables were bills, gender, barriers imposed by inadequate insurance, lack of transportation, and a perception that physicians charged more than allowed by Medicare. Recommendations are made for health care policy with respect to different age cohorts among the elderly, their families, and the rurality of the population.     

Cross-border childcare strategies of Burmese migrant workers in Thailand

In discussing the challenges of cross-border childcare faced by migrant workers, most research focuses on ‘distance mothering’, assuming that children remain in the place of origin. In contrast, this article focuses on childcare at the place of destination in the context of migrant Burmese factory workers in Thailand. Since many of these workers are ‘undocumented’, they have few rights in their place of destination. This is especially problematic in the areas of reproductive health and childcare rights. Despite such obstacles, Burmese migrant workers strive to manage their childcare responsibilities by mobilizing whatever resources are available, as well as seeking to maximize the possibilities of citizenship and education rights for their children. According to our research, the specific strategies deployed vary according to the particular location in Thailand in which migrants are working. This study analyzes three locations in Thailand – one in the central Thailand, and the other two at the borderlands between Burma and Thailand. Through a feminist analysis of the ‘care diamond’, the study demonstrates how Burmese women migrant workers utilize the different migrant labor governance systems and porous international border as resources and opportunities to develop complex and changing strategies to juggle their childcare arrangements.     

'Joking apart…': A 'processual' approach to researching self-help groups

It is well known that 'feminist research methodologies' reject the traditional and positivistic insistence on detached objectivity, favouring instead a situated and empathic responsiveness to particular research contexts. In practice, however, interviewees often have a justifiable interest in maintaining a communicative distance between researcher and researched, thereby retaining a degree of control over the research process. Although the nature and function of this communicative distancing change over time it may (initially at least) emphasize the boundaries between the respondents' 'insider' and the researcher's 'outsider' status. This phenomenon seems especially pertinent where those researched comprise a tightly knit group with shared interests and experiences such as self-help groups for those suffering from specific disabilities. This paper reflects on my own experiences interviewing agoraphobic women members of two such groups in Central Scotland and discusses the manner in which humour acted as an indicator and facilitator of these changing communicative distances. It concludes that a processual methodology is required in circumstances where managing the research process is often as much a matter of coping with as directing change.