Global Development and Personal Dependency: The High Cost of Doing Well
Author(s)
Meyers, Allan R.
Abstract
Disability and dependency are universal problems that every society has made at least some effort to resolve. Traditionally, we have studied these efforts in terms of national or state policies and programs, or individual ethnic, national, or religious groups’ treatments of the aged, dependent, or chronically ill. As less-developed countries’ populations age, they, too, will bear an increasing burden of chronic illness and disability. As this happens, they will compete with industrial countries for the human resources to meet these needs. This paper is an effort to describe disability, dependency, and disability relief as global problems, the expressions of which in one country are closely, perhaps inextricably, related to their expressions in other countries and which invite supranational solutions.
