Social inequality

Background: Against the background of demographic aging, the need for professional and private care will increase in the future. To contain costs many welfare states rely on the family as care provider and, in addition, people in need of care often prefer being cared for at home. Thus, the number of people who provide care privately and without pay in the home environment (referred to as family care in this article) is likely to increase.

This study investigates the variations by older people's socio-economic status (SES) (i.e. educational level and social class) in the use of informal and formal help from outside the household in Great Britain, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands. In all these countries, it was older people in low SES groups who mostly used such help.

Throughout the 20th century women were more vulnerable to poverty than men which continues into the 21st century. These gender differences are explored in a chapter on gender, poverty and social exclusion in a volume giving the results of the millennium Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) Survey. Social exclusion exists where one or more of the social sub-systems is not functioning adequately - the economic, social and family and community systems.