Family, Ties and Care

How may social care be secured - particularly in ageing societies - for families, relatives, and friends who need social welfare support? How do different countries and different cultures solve the problems they may or may not, now or in days to come, share with other countries and cultures? Families are the wellspring of society's fortune in a humane paradigm. Furthermore, families are the very backbone of lifelong solidarity in inter-generational relations, and the very place where the readiness of taking on care and responsibility are experienced and learned. This book's underlying idea opens up two perspectives: on the one hand, the differences and similarities in family life forms are chiseled out on the base of an international cooperation. Simultaneously, the international authors are called upon to express their ideas about their own country's future, thus the distinctions and similarities of the respective paths of social care development are rather easily perceived.