Population ageing has become one of the most burning issues on the agenda of the social policy-makers in the industrialised countries. In 2050, about a quarter of the population of Belgium will be aged 65+ and a tenth 80+. This change in the population structure is associated with an increase in the demand for community care. Therefore, the organisation of a sustainable long-term care system is one of the main challenges to address. So far, the family seems to remain the first, the main and the most stable source of elderly care. But family care has its limitations (it is not available for the family-less elderly and may have detrimental consequences for the care-givers if long-term and/or heavy care is needed). Social policies should be developed in order to support or to substitute family care and to provide sustainable long-term care for the elderly in the community. To do that, the first step is to have a good knowledge of the determinants and the dynamics of the care provided to the elderly by their family. This dissertation focuses on the care provided by the spouse and the children (the ‘family care-givers’) in Belgium. The approach is quantitative and, using the Life Course as theoretical framework, the dissertation tries to explore the ‘longitudinal’ and ‘contextual’ aspects of the study phenomenon. The main originality is to carry out a longitudinal analysis of the elderly family care characteristics in a representative sample of Belgian elderly. The three main research questions are addressed: Who is receiving family care? What are the characteristics of the received family care? How do these characteristics evolve over time? But before starting the analyses and answering those questions, the context and the methodology should be specified. Therefore the dissertation has been divided into three parts. The contextual part starts with a discussion of the concept of care and a presentation of the Life Course approach, continues with the review of the literature, then describes the Belgian ...