Publications
The New Face of New York’s Seniors
2013
González-Rivera, C. (2013, July). The New Face of New York's Seniors.
christian gonzález-rivera
Like much of the rest of the country, New York City is graying rapidly. While some initial steps have been taken to plan for this profound demographic shift, not nearly enough attention has been paid to a crucial—and especially vulnerable—subset of the city’s senior population: those who were born in a foreign country and continue to reside here as either documented or undocumented immigrants.
New York has by far the largest foreign-born senior population of any city in the United States, and half of older New Yorkers are immigrants. One out of every ten older immigrants in the country calls New York City home.
The aging of the city’s immigrant population has huge implications for New York. As a group, immigrant seniors have lower incomes than their native-born counterparts and much less in retirement savings. They receive far fewer benefits from traditional entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. Compounding these challenges, nearly two thirds of immigrant residents age 65 and older have limited English proficiency, while nearly 200,000, or 37 percent, live in linguistically isolated households. As a result of these language and cultural barriers, many older immigrants have trouble finding out about existing support services and are much more likely than their native-born counterparts to suffer from isolation, loneliness and depression.
With so many immigrant neighborhoods, one of the most comprehensive health systems in the U.S. and excellent public transportation, New York has the potential to be a great place for immigrants to grow old. But it is far from clear that the city has the infrastructure or programs to handle all the challenges that are likely to arise as this population increases.