ABSTRACT
The proportion of single people is higher than for the population as a whole which is readily explained since without children they have a smaller network of relations on whom to call. Incidentally it should be noted that the number of children available to care for their parents has fallen with the fall in the birth rate. Evans shows that the number of potentially dutiful children available to support their parents fell by 19 per cent between 1951 and 1971. A combination of factors so often exists that there is some distortion in listing the prime reasons. It has already been shown that incapacity on its own does not explain either application or admission to residential homes, although residents are more dependent than comparable age-groups in the general population. Dependency trends in Somerset can be compared for 1970 and 1978. The numbers of residents who were substantially dependent remained the same, at 15 per cent of all residents.
