Abstract
Butler (1999, 2) has pointed out that “unprecedented population aging...has profound effects on society and its institutions.” This chapter focuses on changes in the institution of the family and places family care in a historical as well as a social perspective. The argument is based primarily on findings from the Bangor Longitudinal Study of Ageing 1979–1999, conducted in the United Kingdom. An attempt is made to identify some of the changes occurring in families and to try to link these to some of the key factors underlying processes of change in the later part of the twentieth century. Following brief comment on the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, saying something about the post Second World War period up to now, projections are made about family care in the first decades of the twenty-first century.
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Wenger, G.C. (2001). Across the Generations. In: Weisstub, D.N., Thomasma, D.C., Gauthier, S., Tomossy, G.F. (eds) Aging: Caring for Our Elders. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0675-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0675-9_1
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