Making Migrants’ Input Invisible: Intersections of Privilege and Otherness From a Multilevel Perspective

For some years, the German public has been debating the case of migrant workers receiving German benefits for children living abroad, which has been scandalised as a case of “benefit tourism.” This points to a failure to recognise a striking imbalance between the output of the German welfare state to migrants and the input it receives from migrant domestic workers. In this article I discuss how this input is being rendered invisible or at least underappreciated by sexist, racist, and classist practices of othering. To illustrate the point, I will use examples from two empirical research projects that looked into how families in Germany outsource various forms of reproductive work to both female and male migrants from Eastern Europe. Drawing on the concept of othering developed in feminist and postcolonial literature and their ideas of how privileges and disadvantages are interconnected, I will put this example into the context of literature on racism, gender, and care work migration. I show how migrant workers fail to live up to the normative standards of work, family life, and gender relations and norms set by a sedentary society. A complex interaction of supposedly “natural” and “objective” differences between “us” and “them” are at work to justify everyday discrimination against migrants and their institutional exclusion. These processes are also reflected in current political and public debates on the commodification and transnationalisation of care.

Perceived Everyday Discrimination and C- Reactive Protein Influence on Cognition of Older Black Adults

Black adults and women are more likely to experience serious cognitive decline in older age than their white and male counterparts. Evidence suggests perceived discrimination is associated with poor cognition in older adults, though the mechanisms remain unclear. Perceived discrimination has been linked to elevated inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive protein (CRP), which increases risk for worse cognitive functioning. Yet, little research has investigated whether CRP is implicated in the association between discrimination and cognition among Black older adults or if this relationship differs by gender. Using 2006-2016 data from Black adults ≥65 years old(N=1343) in the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study, random effects linear regression models (1) tested the association between discrimination and cognitive functioning; (2) explored whether this relationship differed for women and men; and (3) assessed whether elevated CRP mediated the association between discrimination and cognitive functioning. More frequent discrimination was associated with worse cognitive functioning (b= -0.24, SE=0.11, p<0.05), though gender did not moderate this relationship. Elevated CRP was significantly associated with worse cognitive functioning (b= 0.40, SE=0.18, p<0.05). Discrimination remained statistically significant in this model, indicating no mediation by CRP. Of note, inclusion of depressive symptoms and cardiometabolic conditions accounted for the association between both discrimination and CRP with cognitive functioning. These findings demonstrate the need for more within-group research on older Black adults documenting the complex relationship between discrimination, inflammation, and cognitive health. This approach will provide greater understanding of the biopsychosocial mechanisms underlying disparities in cognitive functioning in Black adults.

Discrimination and Risk of Incident Disability in Older African Americans

Discrimination is linked to poor health outcomes, but most studies examine young or midlife populations. We assessed associations between discrimination and disability in African Americans. The Detroit Areas Study Everyday Discrimination Scale quantified experiences of interpersonal mistreatment. Separate Cox-proportional hazards models tested the associations between baseline discrimination and incident mobility, activities of daily living (ADLs), and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) disability, adjusting for age, sex, education, BMI, smoking, depressive symptoms, and vascular diseases. At baseline, 441, 674, and 469, participants were initially free of mobility, ADL, and IADL disability, respectively, and 257, 185, and 269 new cases of mobility, ADL, and IADL disability were observed over approximately 8.5 years. Discrimination was associated with higher risk of ADL disability (hazard ratio: 1.03 per 1-point higher discrimination score, 95% confidence interval: 1.00-1.06) but no other disability type. Everyday discrimination is associated with risk of ADL disability.

Discrimination, Stress, and Health Across the Life Course

There is a paucity of research that seeks to understand why race disparities in health across the life course remain elusive. Two such explanations that have been garnering attention is stress and discrimination. This symposium contains papers seeking to address the impact of discrimination or stress on African American health or health disparities across the life course. Brown and colleagues examine the differential effects of chronic stress exposure by means of latent class analysis on mental and physical health in the HRS. Analysis revealed four subgroups, each demonstrated a typological response pattern with the most pronounced health consequences for high stress exposure, appraisal and few or no coping mechanisms. This suggests an alternative approach to examining the stress-health link by using a combined person- and variable-centered approach. Thomas Tobin and colleagues evaluate the life course processes through which early life racial discrimination (ELRD) and racial centrality shape adult allostatic load (AL) among older Blacks in the Nashville Stress and Health Study. Findings indicate that racial centrality is protective against adult high AL for those who experienced racial discrimination as children or adolescents. Cobb and colleagues examine how multiple attributed reasons for everyday discrimination relates to all-cause mortality risk among older Blacks in HRS. The authors report the 3 or more attributed reasons for everyday discrimination is a particularly salient risk factor for mortality in later life. This collection of papers provides insights into how discrimination or stress impacts African American health or health disparities in middle to late life.

Number of Attributed Reasons for Everyday Discrimination and Mortality Among Older Blacks

To date, little is known about the significance of the number of attributions for everyday discrimination on all-cause mortality risk among older Blacks. Data are from a subsample of older Black respondents in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative panel study of adults above the age of 50 in the 2006/2008 HRS waves, respondents completed a battery of questions on experience with psychosocial stressors, which included the number of attributed reasons for everyday discrimination. Vital status was obtained from the National Death Index and reports from key household informants (spanning 2006–2016). Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the risk of mortality. During the 10-year observation period, 450 deaths occurred. A higher number of attributed reasons for everyday discrimination was associated with a higher likelihood of death after adjusting for demographic characteristics and remained significant after further adjustments for other psychosocial, health, behavioral, and economic covariates.

Discrimination, Church Support, Personal Mastery, and Psychological Distress Among Black People in the United States

Objective This study used the stress process model to test the mediating effects of personal mastery and moderating effects of church-based social support on the relationship between everyday discrimination and psychological distress across three age groups of African American and Afro-Caribbean adults. Methods Using a national sample of 5008 African Americans and Afro-Caribbean adults from the National Survey of American Life Study, this study employs structural equation modeling to investigate the relationships between everyday discrimination, personal mastery, church-based social support, and psychological disorders. Results Everyday discrimination was an independent predictor of psychiatric disorders across all groups. Group- and age-specific comparisons revealed significant differences in the experience of everyday discrimination and psychiatric disorders. Mastery was a partial mediator of the relationship between discimination and psychiatric disorder among Afro-Caribbeans while church support was a significant moderator only among the young and older African Americans. Implications: Together, our study findings provide useful first steps towards developing interventions to reduce the adverse psychological impacts of everyday discrimination on African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans. Intervention efforts such as individual psychotherapy aimed to improve Afro-Caribbean individuals’ sense of mastery would be a partial solution to alleviating the adverse effects of discrimination on their psychological health.