Families and the Elderly along the Shores of the Mediterranean: Old and New Forms of Relatedness

Population ageing is posing increasingly similar challenges to the societies on the two shores of the Mediterranean, where family remains the main welfare agency. The socio-demographic and ethnographic evidence surveyed in this article shows that while old forms of relatedness like coresidence in extended families still play a role, they are being complemented by coping strategies in which a familistic ideology favours the “extension” of families through new forms of relatedness ranging from close residential proximity between children and parents to live-in home care where domesticity may catalyze kinning processes between elders and their caregivers.