ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 explored the various ways in which support is given to and received among older people. The findings provided substantial evidence for reciprocity between generations, but with differences between daughters and sons, between areas, and between spouses. This chapter will say something more about the process involved in the exchange of support, linking it as far as possible to broader issues concerning the family life of older people. To develop a more detailed account of the role of the family, we returned to a sample of people first interviewed in the survey, conducting a series of tape-recorded, semi-structured interviews with sixty-two white elderly people aged seventy-five and over selected from the three areas; with eighteen people drawn from a younger generation (sons, daughters, nieces or nephews); and with minority ethnic groups in Wolverhampton and Bethnal Green. This chapter reports on our findings from the first of these groups. Subsequent chapters will discuss the interviews with members of the younger generation, and the family life of the Indian and Bangladeshi older people in our study.
