Dienst van SURF
© 2025 SURF
The continuing aging of the population sparked off a public discussion on the extent of state care of elderly people. A historical evaluation of the Dutch system of family care is an essential part in the above discussion, especially regarding options like self-aid and 'mantelzorg'. Using population registers, household stutters of elderly people in the periode 1920-1940 were reconstructed for two different regions in the Netherlands. The most important conclusion of this investigation is that the Dutch elderly were, in most cases, living independently, as head (or wife of the head) of the household in which they were residing.
How did family and kin take care of their elderly in the communities of Limbricht (South of the Netherlands with extensive household structures) and Scheemda (North of the Netherlands with more nuclear families) in the decades between both world wars.
Mechanisms that drive the intergenerational transmission of poverty have been studied widely, but to understand how these mechanisms are at work in real life we require studies on perspectives of families who themselves are living in poverty. In this study, we combine the perspectives of multiple generations of family households in a rural area in the Netherlands. We want to understand from their own perspective what prevents these families from escaping poverty. Twenty-three family households participated in intergenerational interviews. Results show that recurrent mechanisms were often perceived to relate to rearing practices, norm-setting and geographical mechanisms (immobility and perceived place-based stigma). Family habitus structures the mechanisms that prolong and perpetuate poverty.
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