Many changes in familial factors under the influence of modernisation have limited the Korean family's function or capability to support and care for elderly members, and are contributing to the problems of ageing. Ageing as a social problem is a new concern in Korea which has never been experienced before, and a new challenge to the family and the state. It requires the state's responsibility to support elderly people and to strengthen the family in its care function by utilising services provided by non-familial persons. The problems of ageing may be categorised into four types: (1) poverty and economic dependence (2) difficulties in health care (3) absence or ambiguity of appropriate roles within the family (4) psychological conflicts and feelings of alienation. Present social welfare provisions are far from sufficient to respond to ageing in Korean society. Problems associated with current policies are discussed and recommendations for future development are made. Ways of promoting the traditional value of filial piety, which has acted as a barrier to the development of social welfare policy for elderly people in Korea, are suggested. For the value to be upheld and developed as one promoting welfare provision for elderly Koreans, the ways of practising the value could be reconstructed so that they may meet the needs of modern Korean life; practising filial piety at a societal level should be emphasised. The roles and responsibilities between the family and the state are also discussed.

British research on exit from the labour market has been mainly concerned with men, but US research shows retirement for women is equally salient. Gender differences in attitudes to employment and reasons for early exit are relevant to employment and pension policy.

In this paper, we use data from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative survey to examine gender differences in attitudes to employment among over 2,500 British women and men aged 40 to 59. A key concern was to discover whether the decline in mid-life women's employment through their fifties could be explained by a change in attitudes with age, or was more likely to be due to age-related barriers in the labour market.

Analysis shows that among mid-life people who were not employed, financial considerations were the predominant influence on men's job-seeking whereas for women psychosocial aspects of having a job were also important. Mid-life women showed no decline in their motivation towards employment with age, indicating that women's early exit cannot be explained by reduced desire for employment with age. However, there was evidence of perceived age barriers to employment or promotion which were likely to have affected behaviour and attitudes.

This paper seeks to identify specific problem behaviours related to the distress experienced by informal caregivers of dementia victims. Analyses are conducted using a random sample of caregivers rather than a restricted clinical sample. Distress is measured in terms of both depression and caregiver burden. The findings reveal that specific behaviours on the part of the care receiver are strong correlates of the distress experienced by caregivers. In particular, aimlessness, aggressive behaviours, forgetfulness, and restlessness are correlated with heightened feelings of burden. Apathy or a lack of interest in daily activities is strongly correlated with both feelings of burden and depression. The identification of specific problem behaviours suggests where efforts should be placed in order to alleviate the distress experienced by informal caregivers.

Drawing on the accounts given by 163 relatives, friends and others who knew a sample of people who lived alone in the last twelve months of their lives, this paper examines a variety of strategies used by speakers to maintain their moral identities. Respondents sought to locate themselves as members of a community of care by stressing their activity in surveillance of the living conditions of those who lived alone, describing their part in the orchestration of help by members of a team of professional and lay carers, and in conducting negotiations over the placement in institutions of people who failed to maintain adequate reputations for independent living. A variety of strategies for justifying or excusing placement decisions—including criticisms of the behaviour of the people who lived alone—are described. At the same time, the accounts are read as a resource for understanding the perspective of the people who lived alone. People who live alone towards the end of life face particularly pressing threats to their capacity to maintain meaning and purpose. Declining physical capacity threatens loss of control and the onset of social death, conspiring to undermine ontological security. The struggle to maintain a reputation for independence in the face of neighbourly surveillance for signs of slippage is described. The paper concludes by identifying a central dilemma for carers: how to provide care that allows its recipient to manage self-identity independently.

Recent work on family life in old age may be considered in several dimensions. First, it encompasses different substantive areas: parentchild relationships, care-giving, changing family forms. Second, it involves different types of discourse, which variously reflect social policy considerations, legal and ethical debates, academic discourses and prescriptive writing for professionals and older people. A third dimension consists of methodological and theoretical variations. These include synchronic and life history approaches, quantitative and qualitative methods, positivistic and phenomenological research paradigms, and cross-cultural and historical comparisons.

The following book was reviewed in the June 1995 issue (volume 15, 2, p. 283). Unfortunately an editor's name was mis-spelt and an incorrect ISBN number was given. We apologise to the editors, contributors and publishers. The correct details are:

Dena Shenk and W. Andrew Achenbaum (eds), Changing Perceptions of Aging and the Aged, Springer Publishing Company, New York, 1994, 183 pp., $26.95, ISBN 0 826 18420 0.