Living arrangements of older persons and family support in more developed countries

Promoting an age-integrated society that encourages the participation of older persons is one of the main elements of the set of recommendations on Ageing for the Year 2001 as proposed by the United Nations General Assembly. In the present paper, two important avenues to social integration of older persons will be addressed, namely, living arrangements, that is, the composition of the households in which older persons live, and familial embeddedness, more in particular the familial support given and received by older women and men, respectively. The two are directly and reciprocally interrelated: living arrangements, in particular the relationships available within the household, are of crucial importance as determinants of older adults’ financial and social situation, the social support arrangements available to them, and the realized level of wellbeing or loneliness.