La cura agli anziani, la cura degli anziani

The paper deals with the issue of the care-giving and the elderly people from a relational perspective, particularly focused on family and intergenerational ties, in the light of the morphogenetic processes undergone by Italian and European families. The demographic imbalance, envisaging a growing number of elderly people before a shrinking figure of youths, challenges contemporary societies in terms of a dreaded generational inequity. However, as prominent national and international surveys have shown, generations still take care one of the other, thus making caretaking the symbolic code that leads the family relation. For this reason, the social relevance of grandparents as active elderly people able to play a pivotal role in care-giving grows. At the same time, there is an increase in the number of studies aiming at pointing out family friendly best practices of intervention in the care of the frail elderly people.