Abstract

The continuous trend of ageing population across Western countries has increased, over the years, the academic interest in older people dependency and related issues. Nevertheless, the sociological analyses of the topic suffer - to a relevant degree - from the common shortcoming of being data rich, and theory poor. The use of the Connectionist model, originally developed in health sociology, can contribute to overcome this shortcoming. The article tests this hypothesis through an application of the model to the dependency system in Italy.