Posted 19/12/2025 14:38
The UK Parliament's House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee has published its report ‘Preparing for an ageing society’, finding that the UK is strikingly unprepared for an ageing society, facing increasing costs and a shrinking tax base.
Posted 19/12/2025 11:08
Connecting Generations member Dr Jo Mhairi Hale from the University of St Andrews is the lead author of a newly published study which has found that reducing social isolation protects the brain in later life.
Posted 18/12/2025 09:18
CPC-CG Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE was recently interviewed for BBC Radio 4’s The Briefing Room, outlining current shifts between generations in terms of economic injustice, discussing whether older generations are becoming wealthier while younger working-age adults become poorer.
Posted 13/11/2025 13:46
On Carers Rights Day 2025, we report on research from the ESRC Centre for Population Change and Connecting Generations (CPC-CG) which has uncovered the growing financial and employment pressures on informal carers and the urgent need for better recognition, support and planning.
Posted 17/11/2025 13:47
On 12 November 2025, a group of distinguished population researchers from across the Population Europe network met with the European Commissioner Dubravka Šuica and European Commission officials to discuss policy priorities for an upcoming demographic agenda. Among them were CPC-CG Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE, CG CO-Director Professor Melinda Mills MBE, and CPC-CG member Professor Jakub Bijak.
Posted 13/11/2025 10:42
CPC members Professor Jakub Bijak and Dr Emily Barker have recently concluded their contribution to the FutuRes project, describing labour market challenges and what can be done to create resilience in ageing societies, many of which have decreasing populations. Their key messages and subsequent recommendations are presented in the project's final discussion paper, 'A resilient future of Europe: Strengthening families, work and pensions in the face of demographic change'.
Posted 12/11/2025 13:26
CPC-CG member Professor Athina Vlachantoni recently led a dissemination workshop for the ESRC-funded 'Promoting inclusivity in pension protection and other forms of saving among men and women from black and minority ethnic communities in the UK' project. The event brought together colleagues from Southampton City Council, the Pensions Policy Institute, AgeUK, and Daniela Silcock from Pensions Research.
Posted 23/10/2025 09:42
On 14 October, CPC-CG member Dr Bernice Kuang gave evidence to the London Assembly, a 25-member elected body responsible for representing the interests of Londoners and holding the Mayor of London to account. Drawing on her work on the UK Generations and Gender Survey, Dr Kuang contributed to the Assembly’s Economy, Culture and Skills Committee investigation into the declining number of children in London.
Posted 16/10/2025 10:44
CPC-CG member Professor Athina Vlachantoni and CPC-CG Co-Director Professor Maria Evandrou have co-authored an insightful article for The Conversation. Their piece examines why white British families are more likely to depend on grandparents for childcare, drawing on findings from the UK Household Longitudinal Study. They discuss how employment patterns, cultural expectations, and health inequalities across ethnic communities shape family childcare arrangements, offering new perspectives on how intergenerational care connects to work, wellbeing and ageing in the UK. They explain:
Posted 17/10/2025 08:36
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) hosted a special event on 15 October at the Churchill War Rooms in London to mark the Census 2021 linkage to the ONS Longitudinal Study.
Posted 16/10/2025 10:39
CPC-CG and CRA member Professor Athina Vlachantoni took part in a European High-Level Expert Workshop on ‘Care in transition: Towards a sustainable, person-centred and tech-enabled ageing’, held online on 13 October.
Posted 13/10/2025 10:29
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and experts from the University of Southampton came together on 8 October for a one-day workshop exploring shared research priorities in pensions, work, health, and social policy. Hosted by Public Policy Southampton, the event highlighted the University’s expertise in shaping evidence-led policy and strengthening academic–government collaboration.
Posted 24/09/2025 12:39
As part of her European Research Council (ERC) CHRONO and Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) work, newly published research by Connecting Generations Co-Director Professor Melinda Mills MBE has found that night shift work is linked to shorter sleep duration among middle-aged and older adults, with women, parents, and less-educated workers facing the greatest impact.
Posted 16/09/2025 09:47
Connecting Generations (CG) Co-Director Professor Melinda Mills MBE and CG member Dr Stefania Benonisdottir are co-authors of an article outlining how Our Future Health, one of the UK’s new flagship health research programmes, can achieve its full potential by tackling bias in medical research, harnessing genetic data, and collaborating across international biobanks.
Posted 11/09/2025 13:26
Are you 65 or older? Ever wondered how video games might boost happiness, enjoyment, or social connection? Eve Maynard, Connecting Generations PhD candidate at the University of Stirling, is exploring how gaming could enhance wellbeing in later life, and your insights are invaluable.
Posted 09/09/2025 09:42
Two senior members of the ESRC Centre for Population Change and Connecting Generations team have been appointed to key roles for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2029, strengthening the Centre’s contribution to national research excellence.
Posted 05/09/2025 08:38
CPC-CG member Professor Jakub Bijak was interviewed for the first episode of Certain Futures, a new podcast produced by Radio Spaetkauf in collaboration with the EU-funded FutuRes Project.
Posted 28/08/2025 09:45
Professor Jane Falkingham CBE, CPC-CG Director, spoke on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme following the release of new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which confirmed a continued fall in fertility rates across England and Wales.
Posted 04/08/2025 10:24
The latest issue of the CPC-CG newsletter Changing Populations is now published, providing an in-depth look at some of our activities from the first half of 2025.
Posted 15/07/2025 06:23
A new study from the ESRC Centre for Population Change and Connecting Generations (CPC-CG) at the University of Southampton has found that tackling deprivation among older populations could reduce the need for funerals provided by the public purse.
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.
