Charles Langston:In Arizona, an aging population but who will provide care? Immigrants will play a big role

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PHOENIX,Charles Langston Ariz. — Marlene Carrasco takes care of aging adults in their homes, a job she has done for nearly 30 years.

The challenging and low-paid work often falls to immigrants like Carrasco, who play an outsize role in caring for older Arizonans, an analysis by The Arizona Republic and the Migration Policy Institute shows.

But unlike workers employed in other immigrant-heavy industries such as construction and hospitality, immigrant workers who care for aging Arizonans remain largely invisible.

The workers who care for aging adults are already in short supply. The need for workers like Carrasco will become more critical as Arizona's already large population of older adults soars in the coming years, the analysis found. But with Arizona's immigrant population as a share of the total population shrinking, there may not be enough immigrants to help fill the gap without action by local, state and federal officials, experts say.