Introduction

Demographers have developed likely scenarios of changes in family households for many national and sub-national populations during the twenty-first century. These anticipated demographic changes will alter the number and proportion of different kinds of households, producing important questions for the future. How many elderly persons will live alone, with spouse only, with children or other relatives, or be institutionalized? How many elderly persons will need assistance in daily activities, but will not have children and/or spouse to provide help? How many middle-age persons will have responsibilities to care for both elderly parents and young children? How many children will live in a single-parent household? How many teenage and adult single mothers will have to care for their children with no spouse or partner present? What are the implications of these changing scenarios for family caregiving and the health service system? The new method and user-friendly software for family household and living arrangement projection presented in this book can be used to answer these and other important questions. The method of projecting and evaluating the consequences of demographic changes on future family household dynamics and living arrangements is clearly useful in empirical studies, development of theories, policy analyses, and business management.