Social Policy & Administration issn 0144—5596 Vol. 31, No. 2, June 1997, pp. 119–135 Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me? — Paying for Care in Old Age Gillian Parker and Harriet Clarke Abstract A major issue for social policy in the twenty-first century will be providing good-quality support and care for older people. However, recent debate about this has been driven more by ideology than by evidence. This paper examines the socio-economic, demographic and policy changes that are influencing the debate, and outlines findings from current research on attitudes towards financial planning for care in old age. This shows that the majority of people feel that the state should provide or pay for care for older people, either through a means-tested system or one which provides some basic level of protection which people can choose to enhance through their own means. However, only a minority would be willing to pay themselves for this, either directly through increased taxation or indirectly through reduced prospects of inheritance of housing capital. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings. Keywords Long-term care; Older people; Finance; Survey findings; Social policy Introduction A key issue for social policy in the next century will be the way in which older people are supported and have their health and social care needs met. Current discussion about this issue, however, owes far more to rhetoric and ideology than it does to information or evidence. This paper examines the socio- economic, demographic and policy context within which the future needs of older people are being considered; it describes findings from recent research on attitudes towards financial planning for care in old age; and it discusses the implications of these findings for policy development. The past fifteen years have seen increasing suggestions that the state cannot afford to foot the bill for the care of older people. Policy documents from the Address for Correspondence: Gillian Parker, Nuffield Community Care Studies Unit, University of Leicester, 22–28 Princess Road West, Leicester, LE1 6TP. ¥ Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.