ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews several theoretical models concerning families, intergenerational mechanisms, and support to older generations in the context of societal modernization and postmodern conceptualizations of the family. It focuses on several explanatory models—intergenerational solidarity and task-specific theory—that have promise for explanation in light of emerging historical contingencies and contemporary social change in state and family systems that support the elderly. Modernization theory emerged out of social gerontology in the 1970s as a way to understand how societal development served to lower the social status, resources, and privileges of the elderly. Modernizing economies are generally characterized by rapid increases in the importance of technical knowledge and specialization of the workforce. Task-specific theory provides a systematic approach to the study of social support to the elderly by focusing on the complementary roles played by families and by formal systems of care. Bureaucratic organizations tend to have large size, and a detailed division of labor.
