ABSTRACT
Our study has so far confirmed the importance of family members in the social relationships of older people. Most of our respondents identified immediate family (partners, children and grandchildren) as the most significant part of their social network. We also noted the extent to which this was a more focused network than was found in the previous studies, with children and spouses central to the maintenance of social ties. On the other hand, class and community differences also still matter, as noted in the previous two chapters. This chapter takes these observations a stage further by exploring questions relating to different kinds of support for older people. The concern here is to ask not just who people count as important in their network, but whom they might turn to for help and advice. Can we identify evidence for the emergence of new types of relationships not identified in the baseline studies? Does the family, in the context of four decades of the Welfare State, appear rather less involved in the giving and receiving of support than was the case at the time of the original studies? These are some of the questions to be explored in this chapter, as part of our concern to examine the extent of social change affecting older people.
