Congratulations to PhD Candidate Alexa Carson on receiving the 2023 graduate Margaret Clark Award for her article “The unrecognized influence of class and housing: Intergenerational living and family senior care among Latin American and Caribbean immigrants in Canada.” The Margaret Clark Award recognizes early career contributions to socio-cultural gerontology and anthropology.
Carson’s paper examines the diverse ways in which immigrant seniors navigate Canada’s long-term care system and the affordable housing crisis. Drawing on in-depth interviews with seniors and family caregivers from Latin America and the Caribbean, Carson unsettles the romanticization of immigrant intergenerational cohabitation. Findings suggest that some seniors prioritize independence and residence nearer to culturally relevant communities over intergenerational living; that intergenerational cohabitation within families does not always meet care needs; and that senior care arrangements in immigrant families are shaped by class and migration timing. Read more about the award-winning paper here.
Alexa Carson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellow. Her dissertation is titled Looking after los abuelos: How Latin American and Caribbean Immigrant Families Make Sense of Senior Care.