ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the assumptions being made about the nature and desirability of different kinds of dependencies both within and outside the family. It looks at some of those policies, or lack of them, which create dependencies and question the assumption being made by John Moore and others that they are the sole product of a too powerful state. The possibility of young people being financially independent of their families has been reduced; the length of childhood dependency has been extended and state support for all children is diminishing. As Hilary Graham has very cogently argued: ‘the concept of dependency, although carrying no apparent gender tag, has a very different meaning for men and women’. This is as true for those dependent on others for care as it is for the care-givers. Demographic changes also make it more likely that spouse care will become more, rather than less, important in the future.
