Grandpas on Bikes, Grandmas in Cars: Gendered Attitudes Regarding Physical Fitness among South Asian Immigrant Seniors

• In Event: 392 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01. Aging in Asia and Asian America

Abstract

Most research on migrants assumes that they are a self-selected group that is generally younger, has better health, higher rates of education or valuable skills, and mobility enabling behaviors that make adaptation to life in a new country possible. But with the rise of the .5-generation of migrants, immigrants who migrate to a new country after the age of sixty-five, these assumptions may no longer hold true. Through participant observation in four research sites and in-depth and semi-structured interviews with twenty .5-generation South Asian seniors in the San Francisco Bay Area, this study examines how attitudes towards physical fitness are gendered and proposes interventions to make the aging of migrant groups more equitable by gender.

Author

• Sabeen Sandhu, College of Alameda