Traditionally, the care needs of infants and children have predominated, and economic, public, social and cultural institutions have evolved to meet them. While institutional arrangements change—for example, through the provision of parental leave or changes in what is expected of men and women—the broad contours of the kind of care services needed, how they will be provided, and money and time commitments are well understood. As fertility rates fall in most of the world, the number of children needing care is likely to decrease, although how the effort is distributed across the various actors will change and—hopefully—move to a more equitable distribution between men and women. The economic provisioning for this at the aggregate level is captured to some extent by the economic dependency ratio—the ratio of those ages 65 and older (not in the labour force) to those ages 15-64 (in the labour force).