It is clear that the processes of economic and social change create new prospects and new hazards for every generation. This requires constant adjustment on the part of the social services. Political considerations and levels of resources largely determine how social services are organized and how responsibility is apportioned between the statutory, voluntary, and private sectors. Even in prosperous societies the scale and diversity of needs is such that the formal social services are obliged to utilize and support informal systems of social care and mutual aid. The idea of the welfare state as a universal provider for largely passive populations has never had any reality in fact nor much serious support in political theory. There is widespread evidence of a general trend toward the development of closer links between the formal and informal systems of social care, although this might lead to further variation in social welfare services as societies become more sensitive to their indigenous cultural diversity and develop their own responses to change.