Bahira Sherif Trask

Emerging Trends: Holistic, Comprehensive Family Support Programs

ABSTRACT The results of a qualitative study funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation indicate that a promising path to improving the lives of disadvantaged families is through more holistic, comprehensive approaches to family support. These approaches combine traditional family support activities with the development of human and economic capital. The effectiveness of comprehensive programs is based on the premise that adult and child well-being are interconnected with the physical, economic, and social aspects of their lives. Recommendations are provided for improving existing family support programs through the implementation of holistic strategies.

Critical Issues Around Global Aging

The aging of the global population is unprecedented in human history and promises to play a critical role in globalization dynamics. According to United Nations (UN) predictions, by 2050, the number of elderly around the world will exceed the number of children for the first time in history. In some countries in the industrialized world, this historic shift has already taken place (United Nations 2002). This proportional reversal of old and young has direct implications on intergenerational relationships and intergenerational equity. Compounding this issue is that not only are more people living longer, but over the last 50 years, global life expectancy has grown more than over the past 5,000 years (Peterson 1999). Up until the time of the Industrial Revolution, approximately 2–3% of populations lived until the age of 65. Today, in the industrialized world, the percentages range between 12 and 14% of the population. Demographic predictions suggest that by 2030 some countries will see the population of their elderly soar to 25 or even 30%. And according to demographic predictions for the world population, the number of elderly is estimated to reach approximately 21% by 2050, up from 10% in 2000.

Debates Around Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality

Poverty and inequality lie at the heart of the controversy around globalization. Specifically, global economic integration is often perceived as widening the divide between poorer and richer countries, families, and individuals. Sen (2002) suggests that the main intent of the “anti-globalization” movement, which is itself a highly global form of organizing, is not globalization per se, but the perceived growing economic disparities that seem to stem from globalizing processes. While there is immense debate over poverty measurement and the actual number of individuals and families that live below certain standards, there is no disputing that poverty and inequality continue to impact the lives of millions around the globe. Moreover, in today’s world, visual images of poverty and wealth spread more easily and faster than ever before. This influences assessments of the material and ideological circumstances of external observers, as well as by the individuals of concern themselves.

Globalization as a Dynamic Force in Contemporary Societies

Globalization is bringing about profound changes. The farthest reaches of the world are becoming accessible, in ways that most of us were unable to imagine even just 20 years ago. Accelerating advances in communication and information technologies are changing the ways in which we connect, access information, and interact with each other. For some, these changes have opened up new venues and opportunities: distant places are increasingly accessible, new relationships can be forged, and work and learning can occur from any location that has an Internet connection. For others, these same changes have been associated with loss: the loss of traditions, or jobs, or significant relationships. But whatever form these changes take, few realize the magnitude, intensity, and long-term implications of these transformations. Fundamental widespread beliefs and naturalized relationships are being questioned, negotiated, and, at times, dissolved. These changes are not just restricted to the West or the industrialized world. Instead, extreme transformation is rapidly becoming a global experience. While societies, communities, families, and individuals in all regions of the world, live under a multitude of conditions, they are not immune to the increasingly accelerated, profound, deeply rooted changes that we are witnessing. These changes, however, are not distributed equally between or within societies. Instead, in some areas we are witnessing extremely rapid societal transformation, and in other places only certain groups or regions are affected.

Global Conceptualizations of Children and Childhood

Analyses of globalization, children, and childhood are currently only in the initial stages. From a superficial perspective, children belong in the “private” or domestic sphere. They are part of local environments and not directly influenced by globali-zation. In the eyes of many, globalization is part of the “public” sphere – it impacts macro processes and deals with shifting political economies, emerging markets, politics, and institutional arrangements. Upon closer examination, one finds that there is, actually, a multi-dimensional relationship between children, childhood, and globalization, and that it is analytically incorrect to dichotomize children and globalization into categories such as public vs. private, or domestic vs. international (Ruddick 2003). Also problematic is the current Western conceptualization of children as an age-specific group requiring the same resources, stimuli, and attention the world over. In the words of one prominent scholar on children and childhood, “In a period of scholarship emphasizing the historicization and de-naturalization of virtually every category of social identity (prominently including race, ethnicity, gender, class, and nationality) childhood has remained one of the most persistently biologized and universalized” (Stephens, 1998, p. 3).

Social Change, New Paradigms, and Implications for Families

Accelerated systemic social change is closely associated with globalization. I have argued throughout this work that conventional narratives that approach families, nation-states, or economies as limited static entities, no longer capture the rapid macro–micro interactions that are the fundamental basis of this change. Instead, valuable insight into contemporary social phenomena requires a transnational, dynamic approach that depicts the nature, consequences, and policy implications of these processes. As Robinson (1998) explains, “Social science should be less concerned with static snapshots of the momentary than with the dialect of historic movement, with capturing the central dynamics and tendencies in historic processes. The central dynamic of our epoch is globalization, and the central tendency is the ascendance of transnational capital, which brings with it the transnationalization of classes in general……Determinancy on the structural side is shifting to new transnational space that is eroding, subsuming, and superseding national space as the locus of social life, even though this social life is still ‘filtered through’ nation-state institutions. This situation underscores the highly contradictory nature of transnational relations as well as the indeterminancy of emergent transnational social structure.” (p. 581). Robinson’s observations draw attention to the need for new paradigms that allow us to capture the decentralization of power, the transnational nature of phenomena, and the rapidity and movement that are inherent features of contemporary social life.

Global Migration and the Formation of Transnational Families

A critical feature of globalization is the movement of individuals, both within countries and across borders. As the process of global integration accelerates, we are witnessing a growing number of people on the move. While migration is not a new phenomenon, it has grown in volume and impact since 1945, and especially since the 1980s (Castles and Miller 2003). Due to growing inequalities within and between societies, large numbers of people are moving from rural to urban areas, and from developing to industrialized countries in search of opportunities and resources. Refugee flows, the growth of global organizations, and the creation of new free trade areas are also contributing to significant international migration. While actual migration numbers are low in proportion to the global population, the impacts of migration are significant. Most individuals migrate as families or in groups, and their leaving and resettlement has crucial social, political, and economic implications for their home and receiving societies. International migration provides the basis for the creation of new forms of transnational families and the movement of information and capital.