The Netherlands Interuniversity Demographic Institute (N.I.D.I.) and the Population and Family Study Centre (C.B.G.S.) evidence the growing importance attached to the field of social gerontology. The two institutions are designed to coordinate and to stimulate all kind of re search in the field of population and family. Long-run trends in demographic processes of mortality and fertility have had consequences for the kin network. The increasing nurober of aged peo le in the total population and the reduced number of descendants to whom an older person may turn for assistance is becoming a real...