In South Africa the generation gap is seen as the problem of disaffected youth. This paper discusses intergenerational relations from the perspective of the elderly whose social security and happiness in old age is dependent on the mutual family support system. Family solidarity in 300 three-generation urban households was assessed using measures based on ones developed by Mangen, Bengtson, and Landry (1988) and a single item measuring satisfication with family life used in earlier South African quality-of-life studies. Results confirmed that harmonious family living was associated with the subjective well-being of elders. The South African measure of family harmony was most closly related to the affective dimension of the Mangen et al. (1988) family solidarity construct. Good affective and consensual relationships between the middle and top generations made the most significant contributions to satisfactory family life from the viewpoint of elders. Contrary to expectations there was little evidence of strained relationships between the oldest and youngest generation. Findings intimated that the middle generation plays an important role in closing the generation gap in the more cohesive families by promoting mutual respect and understanding between old and young. Although three-generation households may, by definition, represent special cases of family solidarity during the current unrest in South African townships, it is concluded that the findings augur well for family care of the aged.

This paper looks at the experience of bereavement in old age in a South Wales locality and traces the immediate and long-term effects it has on the bereaved. It examines various categories of bereavement – death of spouse, death of the mother, death of a child, siblings and friends, with death of spouse as specially significant. In each category it closely relates the experience of bereavement to the nature of the relationship formerly maintained, arguing that the significance of bereavement can only be appreciated within the context of social structure which defines the meaning of these relationships. It suggests that the special position occupied by female networks in the social structure enables old women to cope with the effects of bereavement more successfully than old men. For both old men and old women however, the special position they occupy with respect to contemporary society gives death a particular and unique resonance.

In 1990, approximately one out of every three elderly persons in the Netherlands was living alone. This proportion has almost doubled since 1960. This sharp increase in living alone among the elderly has attracted attention in political circles and among policy makers. An understanding of living arrangements of elderly people is critical for a determination of the likely need for public care, such as home help and district nursing, and institutional care. Elderly persons who live alone require public care services sooner, whether or not as supplement to informal care from persons outside the household. This article examines the living arrangements of the elderly in the Netherlands. Special attention is paid to the household structure of unmarried and no longer married elderly persons, and why so many of then live alone. The data used in this study are taken from the 1989/90 Housing Demand Survey (WBO), which is a large-scale sample survey containing approximately 50,000 Dutch households.

Discrimination against old age and work with elderly people are evident in the practices and organisation of caring professions, of which social work may be taken as an example because of its central role in community care provision. This article examines the implications for the status of professional social work with elderly people of recent proposals to develop the role of care manager in place of the case management model developed in Kent and elsewhere. It is argued that such a move derives from managerial concerns, which ignore the likely consequences for retrenching ageism and other forms of discrimination in services for older people. It is concluded that more careful consideration will be required concerning the context in which new professional models are being developed, if these discriminations are not to be reproduced and reinforced, as well as the benefits from case management systems being lost.

Ageing has been referred to as a spiritual journey. Empirical data from gerontological research and paractice literature on the phenomenon of late-life reminiscence reveal a sense of self as process, and ageing as a spiritual journey for a number of older persons. The empirical data experiential reports on reminiscence from the elderly themselves point to a life trajectory of ‘joruney’ of the self that moves from a possessive attachment to an identification with the physical self, significant others, and material belongings to a view of self as a process, as ‘being’ rather than ‘having’ within and as part of a larger process. A process conception of the self derived from William James, contemporary social science, and process theology is delineated to explain the nature of this journey and this process. Two older women who illustrate the process conception of self in their reminiscences are presented, followed by a discussion of the spiritual implications of this conception.