Family Life Education Proposal: Economic Abuse
Grace Crehan and Bailey Giroux
SOCL 351-01: Sociology of Family Violence
Professor Bidwell
March 14, 2021
Introduction
The topic that we will be researching and proposing is economic abuse in family units. We will be focusing on family members, specifically younger to middle aged adults, exploiting and misusing the finances of older, elderly family members. For the final of this project, we have decided to create a podcast that will explain all of our research and economic abuse.
Economic Abuse Types
Economic abuse is a atopic and type of abuse that does not get as much attention compared to other types of abuse, like physical, secual or emotional abuse for instance. There is also not just one singular form of economic abuse. In order to explain economic abuse, it is important to know the types, including economic abuse, economic control, economic sabotage, and economic exploitation. Economic abuse includes any behavior that controls an individual’s ability to obtain, use or maintain any personal finances, making that individual non self-sufficient (Stylianou, A. M. 2018). An example of economic abuse would be controlling or depriving a person to their financial resources, or any kind of financial resources. Economical control is declining a person of financial/economical access or depriving them of any knowledge of economic resources and making financial decisions, such as withholding/ denying any access to finances, or lying about any or all shared assets and resources (Stylianou, A. M. 2018). Economic sabotage is preventing an individual of obtaining or maintaining employment that earns that person money. For instance, harassing the individual in the workplace, or forbidding/ discouraging education and employment (Stylianou, A. M. 2018). Lastly, the final form of economic abuse is economic exploitation. Economic exploitation happens when a perpetrator purposely tries to destroy all financial resources of an individual, such as stealing credit/debit cards, gambling joint money or opening an account using the victim’s name and money (Stylianou, A. M. 2018).
Elder Economic Abuse
Each of the types of economic abuse explained in the previous section can all apply to family units and the financial exploitation of their older family member’s economic resources. Unfortunately, elderly people are more vulnerable to being taken advantage of due to older age, being more weak and the factor of possible conditions like Alzheimer’s, dementia and other illnesses. Hafemeister states that economic abuse of elders is frequently traced to family members, trusted friends, and caregivers (Hafemeister, T. 1970). He also states that about 80 percent of elderly people are cared for by family members in family home settings which makes economic abuse more common among family (Hafemeister, T. 1970). Common economic abuse among elders and their family members include taking/misusing finances without older member’s knowledge or permission, forging signatures and mishandling assets by the caregiver (Hafemeister, T. 1970).
The federal government has taken an approach at handling economic abuse of elderly persons by establishing statutes. Each state has their own statutes that protect older people and their economic resources. For instance, in Virginia one of the statutes, Title 63.2, clearly states any person or caregiver that illegally uses, misuses, or deprives an adult of his funds, property, benefits, resources, or other assets for their own profit, benefit(Elder abuse and elder financial exploitation statutes. 2020).
Statistics
With life spans increasing due to newer technology and medical resources, the number of elders in the United States population has heightened drastically. Individuals over the age of sixty-five have tripled since 1980, and the number has even more increased for people over the age of eighty-five. As a result of the baby-boomer era, the number of people in their older years are estimated to double the estimated population of elders in 2012. (NCEA, Statistics and Data).
The statistics on elder abuse is very alarming. Studies show that, “approximately one in ten Americans aged sixty and old have experienced some form of elder abuse” (Get the Facts on Elder Abuse 2021). Many of these individuals will suffer financial abuse and suffer great losses and hardships. The estimated range of losses that elders will face in the United States each each is from $2.9 billion to $36.5 billion. In this range of losses, the most vulnerable ages are between seventy to seventy-nine years old. That specific age range average amount of losses is $45,300 each year.
Risk Factors
There are many different risk factors that can play into financial exploitation of elders. In our podcast, we would like to focus on some of the main risk factors in this population. For starters, older women are more likely to be abused than older men. This issue could be due to women being more empathic towards their family members and are easier to persuade. Second, families who are a part of a lower income family or families in poverty are at higher risk to abuse their elder family members. During our podcast, after discussing this risk factor, we would like to introduce some different financial support options in order to receive financial help in the household. Third, but not limited to, we would like to discuss that older people with dementia are at a higher risk of being misused financially. Studies show that about 50% of elders dealing with dementia have experienced abuse.
Target Audience and Product Accessibility
We have chosen to produce a podcast for several reasons. First, our target audience are children, and close relatives that are adults, of the older individual. We believe that this idea is a great target audience because we can inform people who are old enough in the family that will understand the seriousness of this topic. We do not want to limit the target to only the children of the individual. This idea is due to other family members possibly noticing and reacting to a different family member financially exploiting their older family member.
In the target audience, this generation has the access to technology to be able to listen to the podcast. Whether that is by using a cell phone, computer at home or work, or even gaining access by going to a community center or library. Due to this day and age being so active online, we believe that this will be a great way to interact with all listeners in the target audience. During the podcast, we would like to discuss, and go more into detail, the sections above. Out podcast flow will start with definitions of elder and financial abuse and finish with risk/protective factors. We would also like to add resource options for families who suspect their elder family member is being financially exploited.
References
Education Development Center. (2020, September 23). Why COVID-19 May Increase Elder Abuse-And How We Can Prevent It. EDC. https://www.edc.org/why-covid-19-may-increase-elder-abuse-how-we-can-prevent-it.
Elder Abuse and Elder Financial Exploitation Statutes. The United States Department of Justice. https://www.justice.gov/elderjustice/prosecutors/statutes?field_statute_state=VA&field_statute_category=All.
Hafemeister, T. L. (1970, January 1). Financial Abuse of the Elderly in Domestic Setting. Elder Mistreatment: Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation in an Aging America. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK98784/.
Hernandez-Tejada, M. A., Amstadter, A., Muzzy, W., & Acierno, R. (2014, January 1). The national elder mistreatment study: race and ethnicity findings. Journal of elder abuse & neglect. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3694735/.
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. (2011, June). The MetLife Study of Elder Financial Abuse: Crimes of Occasion, Desperation, and Predation Against America’s Elders. https://ltcombudsman.org/uploads/files/issues/mmi-elder-financial-abuse.pdf.
National Center on Elder Abuse. Statistics and Data. NCEA. https://ncea.acl.gov/About-Us/What-We-Do/Research/Statistics-and-Data.aspx.
NOCA. (2021, February 23). Get the Facts on Elder Abuse. The National Council on Aging. https://www.ncoa.org/article/get-the-facts-on-elder-abuse/. Skiba, K. (2019, February 28). Reports of Elder Fraud Losses Increase. AARP. https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2019/cfpb-report-financial-elder-abuse.html.