ABSTRACT
The family has hitherto played the central role in looking after old people. But, as we saw in Chapter 6, with an increasing proportion of old people living alone or as a single couple, the very assumptions of that system of livelihood security are called into question. In this chapter we consider the implications for the future social security of old people, of the increasing pattern, of single-living and the declining, but still not negligible, pattern of taking care of old people in multi-generation families.
