The family as a social support system in old age.

The cultures and the subcultures of a society define both the needs of its members and the ways in which these needs are to be met. The changes in cultures which have accompanied industrialization and urbanization have affected the relationships among family members, irrespective of their ages. This is not solely because of changes in the living arrangements of families which often accompany the push to the city that can now be observed in developing societies. It is also because cultural changes have brought an expansion of what come to be defined as needs. As people live longer, are better educated, and desire a higher standard of living their needs become greater. The abilities of the modern family to fulfill the needs of its members, young as well as old, must be evaluated against the background of this expansion of expectations (Rosenmayr, 1977). In all developed countries, as individual needs both increase and are differently defined, functions which may once have been the unique province of the family become shared functions of the family and bureaucracy, whether the latter be government, industry or the educational system. Old people, like other family members, have been affected by the changes in social structure which have been accelerated in the last several decades. Where the family was once expected to look after the economic needs of its members, industrial societies such as the U.S.