Intergenerational Solidarity: Between the Family and the State

Abstract

Until the end of the 1970s, the sociology of the family neglected the vertical relationships between generations in favour of horizontal links between parents. The family was liberated from the weight of kinship and the nuclear model became the inevitable reference. But, with steady political, social and demographic changes, the horizontal relationships collapsed as sole model. Links between generations are becoming more and more important. With the crisis of the welfare state, increasing responsibility is being moved into the private arena. The lack of commitment and the progressive withdrawal of public institutions in the matter of social assistance has foregrounded family solidarity. Since the 1980s, many authors have warned of the dangers of considering private and public flows in solidarity as substitutable. Indeed, we have to regard them as complementary.