Carole Cox, Ph.D., a professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, has spent her career studying gerontology and social policy, and in 2015, she dedicated an entire chapter to employment and retirement in her book Social Policy for an Aging Society: A Human Rights Perspective. Ageism remains the last form of discrimination that’s widely accepted in our culture, she says, and it’s critical that we overcome it if we want to grow and thrive as a society. Listen here:

Full transcript below:

Carole Cox: Employers have gotten very smart. They will never say to somebody, you’re too old or, well, we don’t think you can do it because of your age. That would immediately be discrimination, just as if you said, well, I’m sorry I can’t hire you because of your color.

Patrick Verel: You might not know it from all the profiles of fresh faced Silicon Valley executives and whiz kid millionaire teenage investors, but last year a full 35% of the United States population was 50 years or older. When it comes to jobs crossing that 5-0 mark brings some very unwelcome challenges. In 2018, a survey by the American Association of Retired Persons found that nearly one in four workers 45 or older have been subjected to negative comments about their age, and in three and five workers have seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace.

Carol Cox, a professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, has spent a career studying gerontology and social policy. In 2015, she dedicated an entire chapter to employment and retirement in her book Social Policy for an Aging Society, A Human Rights Perspective. “Ageism remains the last form of discrimination that’s widely accepted in our culture,” she says, “and it’s critical that we overcome it if we want to grow and thrive as a society.” I’m Patrick Verel and this is Fordham News.

Now, you recently took to task a columnist in the New York Times for writing an article saying that the aging of the population is having a dire consequence on the American economy. Why?

CC: Well for one thing, even though our population is aging along with the rest of the world because aging is now a global phenomenon, there’s more people reaching older years, ages 60 and over, than probably being born in most societies, but one of the things that we know, particularly in this country, is that people are aging healthier. In fact, we know that we talk now about 80 is the new 60, 60 is the new 40, so we have expectations and it’s true in a sense, people are definitely living healthier for a much longer period of life. In fact, it’s only in the last couple of years of life that we talk about the expenses of an older generation and the healthcare of older people. It’s really only in the last few years of life that these expenses get to be very, very high. For instance, when a person’s in a nursing home or needs a lot of intensive care, that is really a very condensed period of life. It’s not the entire age limit.

People are living healthier longer, which means they also are contributing more. In many ways they are actually a part of the social capital in our country. They are providing incredible volunteer work, often in terms of families. It’s the older adults, the grandparents who come in and do babysitting and childcare, which is incredibly expensive in America and help out with their children and the grandchildren and become dependent upon, so that in itself is a contribution.

They do a lot in terms of the community. Older people are the ones who take on many the jobs, the volunteer jobs, that others aren’t, so they’re doing tutoring in schools. In New York City, we have a whole group of older adults who do the main type of volunteering in the schools with students. They help with SAT tests. They help with getting kids ready for succeeding in school, doing many, many types of volunteering there.

Another thing about older adults is that they tend to have more disposable income than younger generations, which means that they have more money to spend on consumer goods, more money to spend on vacations. They have a lot of spending power and this also is important for our society. When they say it’s having dire consequences for the economy, that’s really such a discriminatory stereotype, which doesn’t look at really what the worth of having older people in the society is.

PV: It’s so interesting you talk about that notion that 40 is the new 30, or 50 is the new 40, or whatever you want to say, that this is the new blah, blah, blah. That basically has not permeated the workplace culture is what it sounds like, but it is something you hear about all the time in the popular culture.

CC: Of course. Of course. In fact, when you look at commercials on television, you see so many of them now sort of showing older people on their bicycles and older people traveling and all, which says, hey, they’re there and they’ve retired, but they’re not ready to sit back and knit. They are contributing, they’re doing something, they’re active, they’re involved.

PV: Why is it harder to prove in court that you’ve been a victim of ageism in the workplace as opposed to being a victim of racism or sexism?

CC: Because employers have gotten very smart. They will never say to somebody, you’re too old or well, we don’t think you can do it because of your age. That would immediately be discrimination, just as if you said, well, I’m sorry I can’t hire you because of your color or because of your sexual orientation. Boy, you’ve got a real case.

They cloak it. You just don’t have this. We need somebody who can travel more or we need somebody who has had more computer skills or a longer time doing certain kind of programming or something. They find another way of discriminating cause you cannot use age itself. Even without hiring, if you go to look at training within corporations, they have a tendency not to provide so much training for people at a certain age, but it’s very difficult to say you didn’t get that training because of your age. Employers are very smart. They can say, well, you didn’t get the training because we want to keep you in this certain area or something. You can always find a reason. As long as you can find other reasons, it’s hard to prove age discrimination.

I think AARP did a study, 23% of all the charges in 2016 in terms of discrimination in the workforce. That’s almost a quarter of the claims were about age discrimination, but only 2% were able to sue. Just last week or in January, the House of Representatives passed a new bill protecting older Americans against discrimination and employment act. This means, the House in this bill, people are given the right to sue, even though age was not mentioned if they have enough evidence to believe that it was age that kept them from being promoted or hired or whatever. It was passed by the House. It goes to the Senate. Nobody believes that it’s going to pass the Senate and the White House is already said that they won’t sign it.

PV: Have they said why?

CC: They believe that the reason being that it’s going to open up to a lot of frivolous lawsuits.

PV: I mean, it’s interesting. I mean, given the fact that baby boomers make up such a huge percentage of the population and they’re now hitting their seventies, I would imagine this is a topic that would be getting, I mean it’s kind of a winner, right? But do you feel like there is any kind of movement on this in general?

CC: Some companies do seem to pride themselves on it and particularly where you need really skilled workers.

PV: Can you give me an example?

CC: Right. Well, BMW is a major corporation which has started making some changes. It’s made the production line easier to accommodate older employees. It’s focused on hiring older accountants, so it’s making an effort and one of the reasons is that they have begun to realize that these people have skills, they have the experience they can really contribute to the company.

One of the things that we find and the data shows that older workers don’t leave. Where a younger person at 30 or 48, certainly in their twenties and their thirties, they take a stepping stone. They go from one job to another job to another, and with it they’re taking their experience and their skills to another company. Older people, once they’re there, they stay. Often they have a lot of experience, a lot of skills that they can continue to use. BMW is one of the companies that comes out as one that’s just really making a point, even in terms of their accounting, to hire older people because they are steadier there.

There is a myth that older people take more time off because of illness and they don’t show that at all. If we look at even the fast food industry, for a long time McDonald’s was making a point of hiring older workers because they stay and they take the job more seriously. There are some changes happening in the workforce. Even if we look at computer skills, computers have been around now easily since the 70s, even earlier. To say that somebody doesn’t have the skills for high tech doesn’t make any sense because they’ve been using them for a long time and because they’re skilled in it, it doesn’t take that long to learn a new program or new software. They can pick it up. As long as people are motivated and they want to do it, age does not become a factor.

PV: That brings me to my next question, which is the tech sector. In 2007, I couldn’t believe this when I actually saw this, that this was a real thing, that Mark Zuckerberg actually said with a straight face, “Young people are just smarter.” Has it gotten any better?

CC: Well, and Mark Zuckerberg is the one who’s not going to change Facebook at all, even though he knows the ads are false and true and lying and all that.

PV: Yeah. Talk about somebody who’s not willing to change.

CC: Right, right. Does that have to do with his age? I mean, this is not anybody I think we need to take as a pillar of wisdom in our society.

If we look at just the candidates for president now, I would say at least what? Five of them are over the age of 70. Are you going to say that, I’m not going to get into personalities here, but age alone is not something, which is saying that people aren’t smart. It’s the same thing with the Supreme Court Justices. Personally, I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one of the most intelligent people there is. She’s in her eighties. The tech sector themselves, there’s got to be people in their forties.

PV: Yeah. When you would start the first to really kind of run into this problem.

CC: Yeah. They’re aging. Now, maybe they do want to leave. Maybe they’ve all got enough that they don’t need to stay there.

PV: We’ve been talking a lot about different companies and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the differences between the United States and other countries around the world. Are there any that you think are good models for us to look to?

CC: Sweden actually has an ombudsman, which goes out to companies. If somebody says, I think I may have been ignored or I’m not being promoted or whatever, and begins to investigate the complaints. Unlike the U.S., where complaints are just disregarded or pushed off. There, they’re really tying to take action. The Netherland has a whole checklist for employers and for human resource people to complete to make sure that they understand what is age discrimination, that to make sure that every job which is being advertised is screened against age discrimination. Ireland also has an initiative within the workforce to mainstream people to keep age discrimination out of the workplace.

Some are developing Belgium, for instance, is one of the countries that’s really working to develop what they call age-friendly workplaces, so that older people stay in the workforce and actually transfer their knowledge to younger employees. If you are very experienced and you’ve done the data, developed a whole all of the data and the software for something 25 years ago and it’s really working and you have new people coming in, you want to make sure that they understand and they have gained the expertise that you have. Rather than starting always anew, they are really trying to keep people in.

One of the things I liked that they said in Belgium and they’re trying to get more older workers involved, there is no age for talent and that’s a wonderful statement.

PV: What makes you optimistic about things here in the United States?

CC: I tell you what makes me optimistic is that there’s a lot of older people who want to stay. They’re not ready to go off and play golf or do whatever else, start painting or something. They really want to be engaged and they have experience, they have knowledge, they have brains, they have as this one said talent, and I just think it’s going to be a mesh. I think that they are going to want to stay and companies are going to say, hey, we can’t just keep getting rid of all these people. This is a big part of the workforce now.

It also, if you think about it, if you’re 45 or 50 and you see that a company where you’ve been for 20 years is immediately starting to push people off in their sixties and that’s not that far ahead for you. You’re beginning to think, well, what’s going to be my future here? It does give people a greater sense of continuity, security that they are able to stay and have a future in a company and they become more committed. I’m being listened to. I can keep working up.

I think it’s quite interesting because if you go to certain professions like law, people don’t discriminate. Oh, he’s too old, right? No, you don’t discriminate about a lawyer. Same thing with a physician. You would not want to go so easily, so quickly to a physician who had just came out of medical school compared to a surgeon, for instance, who’s been doing this for 30 years and has that experience to know, okay, this is what I found and this is what we should be doing. I think that’s going to impact a lot, a lot of the workforce. I’m optimistic.

PV: Yeah?

CC: Yeah.

Aditi Bagchi,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“ESPN Accused in Dish Case of Giving Comcast Better Terms,” Bloomberg, February 11

Tom Beaudoin, Ph.D.,

associate professor of practical theology, GRE,

“Woodford and the Quest for Meaning,” ABC Radio, February 16

Mary Bly, Ph.D.,

professor of English, A&S,

“How do Bestselling Novelists Court Cupid on Valentine’s Day?,” Washington Post, February 14

James Brudney,

professor of law, LAW,

“Nutter Seeks High Court’s OK to Impose His Terms on City Workers,” Philly.com, March 1

Charles C. Camosy, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Drone Warfare Faces Barrage of Moral Questions,” Catholic San Francisco, February 20

Colin M. Cathcart, M.F.A.,

associate professor of architecture, A&S,

“New York City Traffic Ranked the Worst Among the Nation: Study,” AM New York, February 6

Saul Cornell, Ph.D.,

The Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History, A&S,

“After Newtown: Guns in America,” WNET-TV, February 19

Carole Cox, Ph.D.,

professor of social service, GSS,

“Boomer Stress,” Norwich Bulletin, February 19

George Demacopoulos, Ph.D.,

associate professor of theology, A&S,

“Pope Resignation,” ABC, World News Now, February 28

Christopher Dietrich, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of history, A&S,

“Bad Precedent: Obama’s Drone Doctrine is Nixon’s Cambodia Doctrine (Dietrich),” Informed Comment, February 11

John Entelis, Ph.D.,

professor of political science, A&S,

“John Brennan,” BBC Radio, February 9

Howard Erichson,

professor of law, LAW,

“High-Stakes Trial Begins for 2010 Gulf Oil Spill,” Amarillo Globe-News, February 25

Laura Gonzalez, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of finance, BUS,

“Recortes al Presupuesto Podrían Afectar el Seguro Social y Medicare,” Mundo Fox, February 8

Albert Greco, Ph.D.,

professor of marketing, BUS,

“Why Would Anyone Want to Buy a Bookstore?,” Marketplace, February 25

Karen J. Greenberg, Ph.D.,

director of the Center on National Security, LAW,

“Alleged Sept. 11 Plotters in Court, but Lawyers Do the Talking,” National Public Radio, February 11

Stephen R. Grimm, Ph.D.,

associate professor of philosophy, A&S,

“Grants from Foundations and Corporations of More Than $100,000 in 2013,” Chronicle of Philanthropy, February 28

Tanya Hernandez, Ph.D.,
professor of law, LAW,

“Brazil’s Affirmative Action Law Offers a Huge Hand Up,” Christian Science Monitor, February 12

J. Patrick Hornbeck, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Vatican Conclave,” Huffington Post, March 4

Robert Hume, Ph.D.,

associate professor of political science, A&S,

“USA: Supreme Court Case Update – DOMA/Prop 8 Briefs Streaming In,” Gay Marriage Watch, February 28

Clare Huntington,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“Sunday Dialogue: How to Give Families a Path Out of Poverty,” The New York Times, February 9

Nicholas Johnson,

professor of law, LAW,

“Neil Heslin, Father of Newtown Victim, Testifies at Senate Assault Weapons Ban Hearing,”Huffington Post, February 27

Michael E. Lee, Ph.D.,

associate professor of theology, A&S,

“Tiempo: Watch this Week’s Show,” WABC 7, February 17

Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.,

professor of theology, A&S,

“Remembering Benedict — the Teacher, the Traditionalist,” The Saratogian, March 1

Dawn B. Lerman, Ph.D.,

director of the Center for Positive Marketing, marketing area chair, and professor of marketing, BUS,

“Study: Google, Facebook, Walmart Fill Consumer Needs,” Tech Investor News, February 12

Paul Levinson, Ph.D.,

professor of communication and media studies, A&S,

“Will Oscar Host Seth MacFarlane Be Asked Back? Probably Not,” Yahoo! News via Christian Science Monitor, February 26

Hector Lindo-Fuentes, Ph.D.,

professor of history and director of Latin American and Latino Studies, A&S,

“Escaping Gang Violence, Growing Number of Teens Cross Border,” WNYC, December 28

Timothy Malefyt, Ph.D.,

visiting associate professor of marketing, BUS,

“On TV, an Everyday Muslim as Everyday American,” The New York Times, February 8

Elizabeth Maresca,

clinical associate professor of law, LAW,

“Poll: 87 Percent Say Never OK to Cheat on Taxes,” KWQC, February 26

Carlos McCray, Ed.D.,

associate professor of education leadership, GRE,

“Cops Nab 5-Year-Old for Wearing Wrong Color Shoes to School,” Take Part, January 18

Micki McGee, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of sociology, A&S,

“Do Self-Help Books Work?,” Chicago Sun Times, February 21

Mark Naison, Ph.D.,

professor of African and African American Studies and history, and principal investigator of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP), A&S,

“Professor: Why Teach For America Can’t Recruit in my Classroom,” Washington Post, February 18

Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D.,

associate professor of political science, A&S,

“Analysis: Obama to Republicans – Can We Just Move On?,” WHTC 1450, February 13

Kimani Paul-Emile,

associate professor of law, LAW,

“Some Patients Won’t See Nurses of Different Race,” Cleveland Plain Dealer via AP, February 22

Michael Peppard, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of theology, A&S,

“Big Man on Campus isn’t on Campus,” Commonweal, February 20

Francis Petit, Ed.D.,

associate dean and director of Executive Programs, BUS,

“Marissa Mayer Takes Flak for Gathering Her Troops,” E-Commerce Times, March 1

Rose Perez, Ph.D.,

assistant professor of social work, GSS,

“Education Segment,” Mundo Fox, January 21

Wullianallur “R.P.” Raghupathi, Ph.D.,

professor of information systems, BUS,

“¿Qué Tiene Silicon Valley para Producir ‘Frutos’ Como Steve Jobs?,” CNN, February 24

Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D.,

Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and professor of law and founding academic director of the Center on Law and Information Policy, LAW,

“Google App Store Policy Raises Privacy Concerns,” Reuters, February 14

Erick Rengifo-Minaya, Ph.D.,

associate professor of economics, BUS,

“Noticias MundoFOX 10PM Parte II,” Mundo Fox Noticias, February 8

Patrick J. Ryan, S.J.,

The Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, A&S,

“Pope Resignation,” WNBC, Sunday “Today in NY,” March 13

Susan Scafidi,

professor of law, LAW,

“Diamonds: How $60B Industry Thrives on Symbolism,” CBS This Morning, February 21

Christine Janssen-Selvadurai, Ph.D.,director of the entrepreneurship program at the Gabelli School of Business and co-director of both Fordham’s Center for Entrepreneurship and the Fordham Foundry, BUS,

“NYC Embraces Silicon Valley’s Appetite for Risk,” Crain’s New York Business, February 6

Ellen Silber, Ph.D.,

director of Mentoring Latinas, GSS,

“Mentoring Program Serves Young Latinas Aiming Higher in New York City,” Fox News Latino, February 25

Janet Sternberg, Ph.D.,assistant professor of communication and media studies, A&S,

“What are You Supposed to Do When You Have, Like, 106,926 Unread Emails?,” Huffington Post, February 25

Maureen A. Tilley, Ph.D.,professor of theology, A&S,

“Pope Resignation: Interview with Maureen Tilley of Fordham University,” WPIX, February 17

Terrence W. Tilley, Ph.D.,

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Professor of Catholic Theology and chair of the department, A&S,

“As Conclave to Select New Pope Begins, English-Speaking Cardinals Lead Charge to Reform Vatican,” Daily News, March 4

Peter Vaughan, Ph.D.,dean of the Graduate School of Social Service, GSS,

“Ceremony Held for NASW Foundation Award Recipients,” Social Work Blog, February 28

More features in this issue:

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Besides dealing with poverty and failing health, many have lost their adult children to AIDS, becoming the sole caretakers of the orphans left behind.

But in just over a year since Carole Cox, Ph.D., first traveled to Tanzania, life for grandmothers and grandfathers in Mbgala is already a little better.

Cox, a professor in the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), has spent more than a decade running empowerment classes for grandparents who are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren. Since she began the classes in New York in 1998, the initiative has taken off, helping to strengthen the parenting skills of grandparents all over the country.

“It’s proliferated in many states,” said Cox, an expert in gerontology and social policy. “The curriculum was published a few years ago, and it won a leadership award from the National Association of State Agencies on Aging. So it’s really been publicized.”

In 2009, a documentary called “Grandmother to Grandmother: New York to Tanzania” connected some members of Cox’s empowerment classes with the women of Bibi-2-Bibi (Swahili for “Grandma-2-Grandma”), a nonprofit organization that supports African grandparents who are raising their grandchildren.

In March of 2011, Cox and Elizabeth Chesek, a GSS master’s student, traveled to Mbgala—a small, rural community near the Tanzanian capital—to meet the “bibis.” With the help of a translator, Cox and Chesek met daily with a dozen grandparents to discuss issues such as effectively communicating with children, dealing with behavioral issues, strengthening self-esteem, and helping children through grief.

“They all later talked to me about how much the communication had helped,” Cox said. “They hadn’t really understood the importance of giving children compliments, about sitting down and listening to children when they come home from school.”

The New York and Tanzanian grandmothers have many struggles in common, Cox said. All of them, after raising their own children, have to resume parental responsibilities. Many of them worry about what will happen to the youngsters after they die.

But there are major differences.

“The biggest difference between New York grandparents and those in Tanzania is the extreme poverty in Tanzania,” Cox said. “There are grandparents living on a dollar a day. There’s no welfare, no pensions, no Social Security—they have little to depend upon for support.”

In addition, some of the children are HIV-positive.

After the two-week venture was over, Cox left the empowerment curriculum in the hands of Fatuma Gwao, director of Bibi-2-Bibi, who continued meeting with the grandparents.

This July, one year later, Cox returned to Mbgala on a faculty development research grant to evaluate the classes. To Cox’s delight, not only have the grandparents continued using the empowerment lessons they’ve learned, but they have passed their new knowledge on to their neighbors.

“I was overwhelmed that it has had a lasting impact,” Cox said. “These people are working so hard. They’re just so tired… If this could make their lives a little easier, make it easier for the grandmothers, make it easier for the grandchildren, then I feel like I’ve done something.”

Cox hopes to expand the empowerment program to other African countries where the AIDS epidemic has left millions of children orphaned.

“We need to worry about the next generation,” she said. “It really does take a village to raise a child—but that village needs support.”

Life for grandparents in the village of Mbgala, Tanzania can be wearying. Besides dealing with poverty and failing health, many have lost their adult children to AIDS, becoming the sole caretakers of the orphans left behind.

But in just over a year since Carole Cox, Ph.D., first travelled to Tanzania, life for grandmothers and grandfathers in Mbgala is already a little better.

Cox, a professor in the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), has spent more than a decade running empowerment classes for grandparents who are the primary caregivers for their grandchildren. She began offering the classes in New York in 1998, and since then the initiative has taken off, helping to strengthen the parenting skills of grandparents all over the country.

“It’s proliferated in many states,” said Cox, an expert in gerontology and social policy. “The curriculum was published a few years ago, and it won a leadership award from the National Association of State Agencies on Aging. So it’s really been publicized.”

Thanks to the publicity, Cox recently had the opportunity to bring the empowerment curriculum across the world.

In 2009, a documentary called “Grandmother to Grandmother: New York to Tanzania” connected some of the grandmothers from Cox’s empowerment classes with the women of “Bibi-2-Bibi” (Swahili for “Grandma-2-Grandma”), a nonprofit organization that supports African grandparents who raising their grandchildren.

When Bibi-2-Bibi founder Jann Mitchell, of Sweden, heard about Cox’s classes, the two women teamed up to bring the program to Tanzania.

In March of 2011, Cox and Elizabeth Chesek, a GSS master’s student, traveled to Mbgala—a small, rural community near the Tanzanian capital—to meet the “bibis.” With the help of a translator, Cox and Chesek met daily with a dozen grandparents to discuss issues such as effectively communicating with children, dealing with behavioral issues, strengthening self-esteem, talking to children about sex, and helping children through grief.

“They all later talked to me about how much the communication had helped,” Cox said. “They hadn’t really understood the importance of giving children compliments, about sitting down and listening to children when they come home from school.”

The New York grandmothers and Tanzanian grandmothers have many struggles in common, Cox said. All of them, after raising their own children, have to resume parental responsibilities, and many of them worry about what will happen to the youngsters after they die.

The bibis of Mbgala, however, have significantly fewer resources to alleviate an already difficult situation.

“The biggest difference between grandparents in Tanzania and grandparents in New York is the extreme poverty in Tanzania,” Cox said. “There are grandparents living on a dollar a day. There’s no welfare, no pensions, no social security—they have little to depend up on for support.”

In addition, some of the children themselves are HIV positive.

“I did a class on how to deal with behavioral problems in children, and one of the grandmothers told me that her grandson behaves fine, except when they have no rice and he needs to eat because of his AIDS medication,” Cox said. “The grandparents in Tanzania are just trying to meet basic needs.”

After the two-week venture was over, Cox left the empowerment curriculum in the hands of Fatuma Gwao, the director of Bibi-2-Bibi, who continued meeting with the grandparents.

This July, Cox returned to Mbgala on a Faculty Development Research Grant to evaluate the classes one year later. To her delight, not only have the grandparents continued using the lessons they’ve learned in the empowerment classes, but they have also passed their new knowledge on to their neighbors.

“I was overwhelmed by it, that it has had a lasting impact,” Cox said. “These people are working so hard. They’re just so tired… If this could make their lives a little easier, make it easier for the grandmothers, make it easier for the grandchildren, then I feel like I’ve done something.”

Cox hopes to expand the empowerment program to other countries in Africa, where the AIDS epidemic has left millions of children orphaned.

“We need to worry about the next generation,” she said. “And it really does take a village to raise a child—but that village needs support. So it is critically important to offer support. Because if we don’t, we lose both grandparents and grandchildren.”

For Carole Cox, Ph.D., a professor in the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS), even a safari to Uganda and Rwanda involved thinking about the elderly: she asked the guide how the older gorillas they trekked to visit were treated by the rest of the band.

That Cox would ask such a question doesn’t come as much of a surprise to those who know her, for the gerontology expert has spent much of her career engaged in efforts to empower the elderly.

Ten years ago, Cox began teaching classes to grandparents who had become the primary caregivers for their children’s children. Funded by the New York City Department of Aging, the courses are now being replicated across the country.

“It’s a major social issue,” said Cox, citing census data indicating that there are two million grandparents caring for more than six million grandchildren nationwide, a number that has quadrupled since 1990.

In New York, 143,000 grandparents are raising grandchildren (86,000 of them in the five boroughs alone).

“The grandparents are more likely to be poor, getting public assistance, and less likely to have health insurance,” Cox said. “Many of the children are abused or neglected before being taken in by the grandparents, and services for grandparents are not always there for them.”

That’s where Cox’s empowerment classes come into play. She meets twice a week with 15 to 20 grandparents as part of a class that focuses on how they can strengthen their parenting skills. As part of the course, grandparents are expected to become advocates, Cox said, traveling to Albany and New York’s City Hall to talk about their needs. The course prepares them for these activities through classes on public speaking and advocacy.

The classes help grandparents deal with the often profound changes to their lives in the wake of assuming parental responsibilities once again. “The grandparents have lost the control of their own lives,” said Cox. “There’s a great deal that they have to give up. Their freedom—their independence—is gone. They ask, ‘When is it going to be my time?’ They balance these feelings of loss, however, with the rewards of watching their grandchildren develop into responsible and loving people.”

The balancing act is not easy, Cox said, requiring patience and much perseverance.

Another issue the grandparents face, Cox said, is a subtle though palpable rebuke of their own parenting skills by peers and others, including professionals. It’s as if those around them believe that had the grandparents done a better job with their own children, they wouldn’t have to be raising their grandchildren.

For Cox, blame is misplaced. “Every one of the grandparents I’ve worked with really wants these children to succeed,” she said.

Cox’s focus on gerontology came from the strong role her own grandparents played in her life while growing up in Los Angeles. She finds that it’s a common thread for those attracted to the field.

“The gerontology classes [at Fordham]are increasing,” she said. “Most students in the Master of Social Work program want to work with families and children. But this year, we are beginning to see a change as more and more students are showing an interest in gerontology. It’s energizing.”

Besides focusing on issues involving the elderly, Cox also engages in research on what might be considered the other end of the spectrum: families who are caring for people with dementia.

“Dementia is a public health issue affecting, according to recent data, one in seven people over the age of 71 years,” she said. “Alzheimer’s Disease is the most common but not the only type of dementia. Alzheimer’s has a major impact on families, particularly on women, who are the majority of caregivers as well as the majority of care receivers.

“These families need a multitude of services from home care to counseling and respite,” she said. “ Most persons are cared for in their homes and communities, and supports that enable them to remain there while also helping the family that is providing care are urgently needed.”

But much of her time these days is spent helping the grandparents adjust to parenting their grandchildren. She recently expanded the grandparents’ parenting program to the Russian community in Brighton Beach, collaborating with a Russian-speaking social worker.

“The first class overwhelmed me,” she said. “Two or three of the grandparents started to cry. No one had talked with them before about these issues, and they were so grateful to have the opportunity to share and listen.”

Her empowerment program is also available for people who speak Spanish, and she would like to reach out to Asian-speaking grandparents who she believes face the same issues.

In the current course she is teaching, the grandparents are keeping journals about their daily experiences as a way to record their progress through the class. For Cox, it’s all part of empowering the elderly to face the challenges of their changed lives.

“My project is about empowerment, but these grandparents are already very strong,” said Cox. “The class builds on these innate strengths and abilities and love.”