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Intro -- Ageing Without Children -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Foreword -- Chapter 1. Where are the Children? -- Part I. Asia -- Chapter 2. Problems of Elderly without Children -- Chapter 3. 'They Don't Need It, and I Can't Give It' -- Chapter 4. Adoption, Patronage and Charity -- Chapter 5. In the Absence of Family Support -- Part II. Europe -- Chapter 6. Demographic Change in Europe -- Chapter 7. British Pakistani Elderly without Children -- Chapter 8. Home-place, Movement and Autonomy -- Chapter 9. The Position of the Elderly in Greece Prior to the Second World War -- Notes on Contributors -- Index.

ABSTRACTThe provision of physical care is a sensitive matter in all cultures and is circumscribed by moral injunctions and personal preferences. Research on Western cultures has shown care networks to be narrow subsets of people's wider networks and revealed dependence to be deeply undermining of full personhood. In non-Western societies these issues have received little attention, although it is sometimes assumed that care provision and dependence are much less problematic. This paper uses longitudinal ethnographic data from two ethnic groups in rural Indonesia to compare care preferences and practices in old age and to examine the implications of care dependence. The groups manifest varying degrees of daughter preference in care and differ in the extent to which notions of shame and avoidance prohibit cross-gender intimate care and care by 'non-blood' relatives. Demographic and social constraints often necessitate compromises in actual care arrangements (e.g.dependence on in-laws, neighbours or paid carers), not all of which are compatible with quality care and a valued identity. We argue that by probing the norms and practices surrounding care provision in different socio-cultural settings, it becomes possible to arrive at a deeper understanding of kinship, personhood and sociality. These insights are not only of sociological interest but have implications for people's vulnerability to poor quality care in old age.

L'hétérogénéité durable de la fécondité moderne constitue un défi pour la modélisation démographique en imposant d'étudier les variations entre les nombreuses sous-populations qui constituent la société. Elle impose aussi que les groupes élémentaires soient conçus comme existant à différents niveaux d'organisation sociale (strates socioéconomiques, ethnies, secteurs d'activité, réseaux de parenté et réseaux familiaux…), et que soient spécifiés les modes de relation et les effets de superposition entre ces sous-populations. Les processus réticulaires qui sous-tendent la population et sa structuration sociale aggravent la difficulté car, dans leur fonctionnement normal, ce ne sont pas des groupes de population délimités comme ceux auxquels a d'habitude recours l'analyse quantitative formelle. Ils nécessitent de renouveler l'analyse des compositions démographiques. Les données provenant d'une étude multisite et longitudinale de communautés indonésiennes offrent l'occasion d'explorer comment construire des modèles de variation de la fécondité sur la durée. Le caractère ouvert et mobile des réseaux locaux est décrit à partir de trois types d'apparentement qui se recoupent. L'étude ethnographique et des enquêtes sur échantillons aléatoires permettent, conjointement, d'établir et d'interpréter un modèle de niveaux socioéconomiques qui tienne compte de la flexibilité des réseaux. Ce modèle sert en particulier à identifier certains défauts importants dans plusieurs modèles et indicateurs démographiques usuels. La constatation de différences entre réseaux et entre niveaux montre la diversité sur le temps long de la transition de fécondité en Indonésie et la nécessité de ne pas prendre pour acquise la poursuite des déclins observés.

Indonesia, like many rapidly ageing lower-middle-income countries (LMICs), tends to portray older citizens as 'vulnerable' and 'dependent'; yet the country has few public policies to support them. To this discourse, an alternative stereotype is emerging, influenced by notions of 'successful ageing', which promotes models of older people as healthy and contributing to families and the nation state. In this article, we argue that both stereotypes ignore the varied and context-specific conditions of later life. Importantly, the dominant representations ignore the frailty and dependence that many people in LMICs experience towards the end of their lives. This results in dependence and frailty being concealed from view and treated as a purely familial responsibility, which households living in economic, social and demographic precarity can ill afford. 'Familism by default' spells invisible, unsupported and unsustainable care for many older Indonesians. This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork between 2018 and 2022 from two research projects on ageing, livelihoods, vulnerability and care in disparate communities across Indonesia. By juxtaposing dominant representations with the social, economic and health realities in which lives are lived, we trace the implications for policies, values and practices around care in later life.