ABSTRACT
The process of progressive population ageing is a multidimensional phenomenon that influences various spheres of the whole life of a society, including older people. Demographic drivers of population ageing such as increasing longevity, falling fertility and outward migration of younger people for permanent stay, especially abroad, generate this process. This chapter focuses on Poland as a case study for changes of family relations and family care in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). While both in Poland and the UK carers are usually the children of older people, in Sweden the role is fulfilled most frequently by spouses of the care-receivers. The advantage of spouses as caregivers over other family members in Sweden is probably caused by the longer average life expectancy there and the smallest difference between the average life span of men and women of about four years in Europe, hence the possibility of depending on a spouse into old age regardless of sex.
