Introduction

Abstract

As population aging proceeds around the world, advanced nations have confronted the problem of what to do with frail older people— those disabled enough by physical or mental deficiencies that they need assistance to maintain anything like normal life. The relatively small numbers of people who lived long enough to need such assistance used to be cared for by their children—usually daughters or daughters-in-law—but social changes have meant fewer children, more women working, and new attitudes. The latter might be called liberation from traditional strictures or weakening of a sense of responsibility, but the effect is the same: although families still provide most of the care for frail older people in all countries, governments shoulder more of the burden than earlier.