ABSTRACT
Policies on welfare provision tend to draw a boundary between the state and the family, but such a boundary is highly contested and shifts over time according to changes in a nation’s social and economic circumstances, demographic patterns and political agenda (Fox Harding 1996). This chapter aims to explore how in relation to the responsibilities of long-term care for older people the state-family boundary has shifted in contemporary societies in the East and the West. The generational contract, or intergenerational relationship within the family, which is the main analytical framework adopted in this book, forms the backbone of a wider social contract defined in each national context. It is misleading, however, to divorce links between the different levels of ‘generational contracts’ since they are often mutually influential (Walker 1996). This chapter thus examines how in the context of broader trends in the political economy state-family boundaries are shaped and reshaped by policy logics and various welfare reforms.
