Relationships Between the Generations in British Families Past and Present

Abstract

In the absence of firm evidence about the nature of the family in the past it is very easy to assume that family and kin ties have become less cohesive than once was the case. Such views helped shape the policies of Conservative governments of the 1980s towards the role of the state in the care of the dependent elderly (Gordon, 1988), but similar expectations were also current in 1957 when Townsend published his study of the elderly in Bethnal Green (Townsend, 1957, p. 3) and further back still, in the 1890s, there were already some ready to allege a growing neglect by children of their elderly parents (Booth, 1894, 1980, p. 26).