Posted 11/07/2025 08:01
Observed each year on 11 July, World Population Day in 2025 focuses on the theme ‘Empowering young people to create the families they want in a fair and hopeful world’. This year’s theme brings attention to declining fertility rates across the globe. While public discourse often centres on fears of population collapse, the primary concern is that many young people are unable to form the families they would like.
Posted 03/07/2025 09:03
CPC member Dr Emily Barker was part of a team that won first place at a recent three-week national hackathon on responsible AI for social good.
Posted 03/07/2025 09:29
CPC-CG member Professor Jackie Wahba OBE has recently been elected as a Trustee of the Academy of Social Sciences’ Council, as well as appointed as a Founding Fellow of the Royal Economic Society.
Posted 03/07/2025 09:14
Professor Jakub Bijak’s EU-funded QuantMig project has been recognised by the European Commission's Research and Innovation services as a Horizon 2020 success story for research that demonstrates exceptional innovation, visibility, and societal benefit.
Posted 04/07/2025 07:48
A recent episode of the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership’s podcast, Speaking of Research, featured research from Yifan Ge on the effects of changes to the UK state pension age, particularly on women born in the 1950s.
Posted 01/07/2025 13:48
CPC-CG members Professor Hill Kulu, Dr Bernice Kuang, Dr Sarah Christison, and Professor Ann Berrington are shedding new light on one of Britain's most pressing demographic challenges through groundbreaking research into how family-building patterns have evolved across Great Britain over the past three decades.
Posted 04/07/2025 07:59
Childcare encompasses a range of diverse tasks, yet is persistently gendered, with women doing more than men, regardless of work arrangements. Flexible working can exacerbate childcare inequalities among working couples, but less is known about how flexible working is associated with the gender division of childcare tasks that directly interfere with the workday.
Posted 21/05/2025 09:44
CPC-CG Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE is a contributor to the latest UK Parliament POSTnote on the 'Impacts of birthrate decline’.
Posted 13/05/2025 13:54
Hopes that working from home would help struggling UK regions attract high-skilled workers are not being realised, according to the findings of a new research project led by CPC-CG members Professor Jackie Wahba OBE and Dr David McCollum.
Posted 13/05/2025 10:16
The Mapineq project came together with ESRC Connecting Generations on 29 April to host a webinar on 'Welcoming regions: Creating conditions for starting and sustaining family life'. During the webinar, experts explored the latest UK family-related research and discussed how to better support families and those who would like to start a family in the UK. The speakers presented data, practical examples and strategies for addressing local challenges to revitalise communities.
Posted 24/04/2025 11:34
CPC-CG Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE appeared on BBC Politics South on Sunday 13 April to discuss regional and national demographic challenges.
Posted 24/04/2025 11:19
CPC-CG Director, Professor Jane Falkingham CBE, was recently invited to give the Roger Jowell Memorial Lecture 2025 at City St George’s University of London on 9 April 2025.
Posted 24/04/2025 10:38
New research by Dr Saddaf Naaz Akhtar, Dr Spela Mocnik, Professor Yuanyuan Yin and Professor Athina Vlachantoni examines financial preparedness for later life among individuals from the Chinese community in the UK.
Posted 24/04/2025 10:20
In the UK, cohabitation is now the most common type of first live-in partnership. While some couples go on to marry or separate, others are increasingly choosing to continue to cohabit. One possible explanation for the changing trends in partnership is the growing economic precariousness experienced by young people.
Posted 24/04/2025 10:03
The latest edition of Re:Action Magazine showcases some of the research undertaken by the ESRC Connecting Generations team, including articles on:
Posted 11/03/2025 11:31
CPC-CG Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE, Vice President Engagement & International at the University of Southampton, attended the MIPIM Global Urban Festival in Cannes on 10 March. Representing the UK's Central South region, Professor Falkingham was a speaker at the Housing Matters! event, highlighting the urgent need to address housing challenges in an increasingly urbanised world.
Posted 06/02/2025 09:03
Published in The Conversation on 5 February, CPC-CG and CRA members Professor Athina Vlachantoni, Professor Jane Falkingham and Professor Maria Evandrou highlight how the ethnic pension gap in the UK leaves minority ethnic communities worse off in retirement than their white British counterparts, with women facing greater disadvantages than men. Here, the authors explain the issue in more detail and explore potential policy solutions.
Posted 03/02/2025 10:41
The latest issue of the CPC-CG newsletter magazine, Changing Populations, is now published.
Posted 03/02/2025 16:37
In January, CPC hosted a workshop on Nowcasting Populations at the Solent Sky Museum as part of the Collaborative Group on Nowcasting Populations (CGNP) programme, funded by the University of Oxford's Van Houten Fund.
Posted 03/02/2025 16:19
Congratulations to CPC-CG member Professor Elspeth Graham who has been awarded the 2024 Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) Coppock Research Medal. First awarded in 1931, the Coppock Research Medal is the highest research-specific award for an outstanding contribution to geographical knowledge through research and publication.
Posted 03/02/2025 10:52
Research led by CPC-CG Co-Director Professor Maria Evandrou and CPC-CG Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE highlights the growing financial and employment pressures on informal carers in Britain.
Posted 03/02/2025 16:06
CPC-CG member Professor Alasdair Rutherford is leading a team who are revolutionising housing and ageing planning through innovative ‘serious’ games.
Posted 03/02/2025 11:15
Research by CPC-CG member Professor Nissa Finney has found that ethnic groups in Scotland were over two times more likely to experience the death of someone close to them during Covid-19 than the white population.
Posted 19/12/2024 09:40
New research from the Resolution Foundation, supported by the ESRC Connecting Generations research programme, highlights rising homeownership rates among younger millennials but warns of widening inequalities between income groups. The findings, published today (20 December), show that while homeownership for 25-year-olds has increased since its low point in 2015-16, these gains are concentrated among middle- and high-income households, deepening the property divide.
Posted 20/12/2024 13:16
Professor Jakub Bijak, CPC-CG Member, has published a new book 'From uncertainty to policy: A guide to migration scenarios'.
Posted 03/02/2025 15:30
CG Co-Director Professor Melinda Mills MBE recently launched the Mapineq Link tool for exploring and analysing regional distribution of socioeconomic inequalities.
Posted 19/12/2024 11:43
Dr Mary Abed Al Ahad, a researcher at the ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC) and the University of St Andrews, has led a ground-breaking study linking cumulative exposure to air pollution with an increased risk of hospital admissions for both mental/behaviorual and physical illnesses. The research used longitudinal data to reveal the far-reaching health impacts of ambient air pollution.
Posted 16/12/2024 09:33
Help us to learn more about intergenerational policies and programmes.
Posted 16/12/2024 10:21
Connecting Generations Co-Director Professor Melinda Mills MBE is senior lead author of a new review published in Nature Aging that reveals how your DNA shapes reproductive health, fertility, and life expectancy.
Posted 03/12/2024 08:58
ESRC Centre for Population Change and ESRC Connecting Generations Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE has been announced as the Chair of Main Panel C: Social Sciences for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2029.
Posted 21/11/2024 10:46
New research published today by the Resolution Foundation, funded by the ESRC Connecting Generations research programme, has found that increasing transfers between generations have a profound, but unequally felt, impact on people’s economic prospects.
Posted 04/11/2024 09:10
The latest ONS release on Births in England and Wales: 2023 revealed that birth rates have reached their lowest point since the 1970s, with the fertility rate dropping to a record low of 1.44 children per woman in England and Wales. Scotland's is even lower at 1.3. This decline in Great Britain aligns with a global trend as many countries face similar challenges, from rising living costs to shifting personal priorities among young adults.
Posted 10/10/2024 12:01
This week, CPC-CG members were invited to comment across TV and radio on the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) population estimates.
Posted 03/02/2025 16:12
In October, Connecting Generations partners at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) hosted the inaugural Demographic Science Summit to celebrate five years of disrupting and realigning demography for the benefit of populations around the world.
Posted 03/02/2025 11:32
CPC-CG member Dr David McCollum has been exploring population sustainability and geographical inequalities amid the challenges of an ageing population.
Posted 30/09/2024 09:47
CPC-CG members Professor Jane Falkingham CBE, Professor Maria Evandrou and Professor Nissa Finney have contributed their expertise to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Horizons 2034 Population Change theme examining how design professionals can address levels of change at the urban scale while supporting social cohesion for diverse and intergenerational communities.
Posted 05/09/2024 09:51
CPC-CG members will head to the British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) annual conference at the University of Bath from 9-11 September 2024.
Posted 29/07/2024 14:30
The latest issue of the CPC-CG newsletter magazine, Changing Populations, is now published.
Posted 29/07/2024 14:06
We have recently published the ESRC Connecting Generations Highlights 2022-2024 report, detailing our research and activities during the first two years of the project.
Posted 23/07/2024 08:36
Recent research comparing educational, employment, and occupational mobility between second-generation immigrants and White British individuals in the UK reveals significant disparities.
Posted 23/07/2024 12:43
A new paper published in Science Advances indicates that life expectancy in India suffered large and unequal declines during the Covid-19 pandemic - with life expectancy 2.6 years lower in 2020 than 2019.
Posted 26/07/2024 13:02
The ESRC Connecting Generations Kinship Model (CG-Kin) provides new insights into the evolving availability of kin, emphasising the complexities of kinship dynamics in an ageing society.
Posted 09/07/2024 09:13
World Population Day, observed annually on 11 July, is centred this year on the theme 'To leave no one behind, count everyone'. This theme underscores the critical issue of the underrepresentation of marginalised communities in data, profoundly affecting their well-being and societal inclusion. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres states:
Posted 10/06/2024 14:10
From Thursday 13 June, CPC-CG members will head to the European Population Conference (EPC) in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Posted 27/06/2024 09:34
Connecting Generations members Molly Broome and Sophie Hale have co-authored a new 2024 general election briefing with Resolution Foundation colleagues on the impact of tax and benefit changes on intergenerational fairness.
Posted 19/06/2024 10:10
The 2023/24 academic year has seen us host many CPC-CG seminars, with visitors giving both in-person and online presentations. Most of our seminars are now available to watch on YouTube, so do take the opportunity to catch up using the links below. This year’s seminars covered a broad range of topics from our colleagues across the world:
Posted 28/05/2024 08:16
A new paper suggests that the number of European migrants living in the UK decreased in the run-up to Brexit, with the most significant decline occurring amongst those aged 20-29 and those with tertiary education.
Posted 18/01/2024 12:47
The data from the UK's first Generations and Gender Survey (UK GGS) is now accessible from the UK Data Service data catalogue: United Kingdom Generations and Gender Survey, 2022-2023. The comprehensive new survey reveals the changing face of UK families amid recent economic, social, and political turmoil.
Posted 10/04/2024 09:13
Connecting Generations member Professor Judith Phillips OBE - a world-renowned gerontologist and expert in healthy ageing - has been elected a fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE). Professor Phillips, a leader in the field of positive ageing, has been recognised for her outstanding research and policy work in improving the lives of older people.
Posted 01/03/2024 14:36
CPC-CG member Professor Athina Vlachantoni has been examining ethnic differences in pension protection among mid-life and older individuals from minority ethnic communities in the UK.
Posted 04/03/2024 10:16
To mark International Women's Day (8 March) CPC-CG Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE attended a roundtable discussion at 10 Downing Street to discuss employer support for people affected by menopause in the workplace. Professor Falkingham also hosted the Rt Hon Justine Greening for an 'in discussion' event focusing on this year's International Women's Day theme of 'inspiring inclusion' at the University of Southampton on 6 March.
Posted 01/03/2024 14:23
New analysis from the Resolution Foundation, supported by ESRC Connecting Generations, has found that the turnout divide between richer and poorer young voters is deepening. Millennial non-graduates and non-homeowners are increasingly unlikely to vote compared to their graduate and homeowning counterparts since the last general election.
