1.   Introduction

Challenge One Demographic Change, Generations and the Life Course comprised a multi-disciplinary team drawn from demography, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, economics, neuro-science, education and social policy. The evidence was drawn from commissioned reviews which were commented on and revised, discussions and a formal review workshop. This report takes the key challenge questions as its focus and draws on the evidence to address them. It summarises the papers in support of the identified factors, trends and certainties and uncertainties. It should be noted that Sections 2 and 3 draw heavily on the writings of Harper, Howse and Leeson; Sections 4 and 5 on the writings of  Leeson, Demireva, Hoff, Mann, Lee, and Jessel; Section 6 on the writings of  Lee, Hoff, Mann, Leeson, Lauder, Kelan and Jessel. Full references are provided in the papers.

2.   Trends in the challenge area of  Demographic Change which we can reasonably confidently expect to continue to 2025

2.1 Fertility

The return to high total fertility rates in this country is considered possible but extremely unlikely. The most likely trends are therefore declining or stable.

The causes of these trends are unclear.

• Standard demographic transition theory explains fertility reduction as a result of infant and juvenile mortality. Fertility reduction is thus an equilibrating response to maintain population stability in the face of changing mortality regimes.
• Capital-investment theory, suggests that the need to invest in education as skill-based labour markets arose during the industrial revolution resulted in parents lowering fertility to invest more in fewer high quality children. This thus explains fertility decline as a response to changing economic systems.
• Cultural theories suggest that fundamental norms and values with regard to the need and desire to have children have changed radically as societies and their members have become increasingly hedonistic. Thus self actualisation, freedom of choice, emphasis on quality of life and leisure, and a retreat from commitments, may all act against the notion of investment in offspring.
• Relative economic status theory proposes that fertility is influenced by generation size and relative economic status. This would mean that the baby-bust generations as they enter adulthood would enjoy increased relative economic status thereby giving rise to increased levels of fertility – in theory at least. Easterlin’s models did not take into account the influx of women into the workplace since the 1970s, and the high opportunity costs of leaving the workplace to have and bring up children should lead to declining fertility. Indeed one of the driving theories behind fertility fall focuses on increased female labour participation, suggesting that increased female education and autonomy, increased desire for consumption requiring second incomes and increased female investment in careers have all led to increased female economic activity and subsequent decline in childbearing.

2.2 Mortality

There is general consensus that mortality across the life course is unlikely to show a significant long term increase. Much of the uncertainty around falling mortality and life extension occur at the oldest ages. The most likely trends are therefore declining or stable across the life course until late age.

Understanding these trends is complex. Within the United Kingdom, mortality levels declined throughout the post-war period at almost all ages, and with the exception of decreases in infant mortality, the mortality decline at around age 40 was the most significant in the 1970-1990 period. Life expectancies at birth in the United Kingdom, for example, increased throughout the period and for both sexes as mortality declined at almost all ages. In fact, in the United Kingdom, it is particularly the scale of the decline in adult and old age mortality which contributes to the observed increases in life expectancies at birth. Infant mortality, although declining, is already so low in this country that the contribution of this decline to the increase in life expectancy at birth is modest. Towards the end of the 20^th century, almost all of the increase in life expectancy at birth in the United Kingdom was due to decreases in mortality at relatively high ages. However, late-age mortality is an increasingly important component of overall mortality and it is changes in these mortality levels that could still confound population forecasts, as they have done in the recent past.

It was originally thought that social class differentials in mortality were understood mainly in terms of material deprivations and environmental hazards such as inadequate nutrition, overcrowded living conditions, poor sanitation and personal hygiene, and hazardous working conditions, all strong associated with poverty. By the 1980’s however it was evident that despite the considerable improvements in the standard of living of the lower socio-economic groups, there was still a large gap in life expectancy. Attention thus turned to the social gradient in mortality risk, whereby lower income groups with a society have a higher mortality rate, despite being well above the poverty line. Socio-economic status (SES) rather than poverty has become the central concept for investigating social inequalities in mortality.

Key theories at present focus on:

• Life style factors (Van Rossum et al 2000; Balia & Jones 2008) particularly smoking and alcohol (Law and Morris (1998)).
• Psychosocial stress: from having a subordinate status in social and occupational hierarchies of power and esteem (Marmot 1994).
• Neighbourhood deprivation or deficiencies in social capital (Smith et al 1998).

2.3 Migration

There is consensus that migration patterns will most certainly change with the UK, as with most countries, becoming a stepping stone as part of international migration flows for self-enhancement. We thus discuss this in more detail under uncertainties.

Currently, however, the foreign population in European countries amounts to approximately 23 million persons comprising approximately 5 % of the total European population (i.e. residents outside their country of origin). Bearing in mind the unreliability of such data in Eastern Europe, it is estimated that Eastern European countries accounted for less than 1 million of this total. Since the middle of the 1990s, the size of the foreign population resident in Western Europe has increased by almost 12 %. Three countries account for more than 60 % of the total foreign population resident in Western Europe outside their country of origin: Germany (35 %), France (15 %) and the United Kingdom (12 %). In Eastern Europe too, three countries, namely Estonia, the Czech Republic and Hungary account for approximately 60 % of the foreign population resident in that region.

Prior to enlargement, within the EU15, approximately 19 million foreign residents were living in a country, which was not their country of origin, and approximately one third of these were from other EU15 member states, with 17 % from Africa, 12 % from Asia and 17 % from Central and Eastern Europe (Salt 2003). The diversity in foreign population composition across Europe is striking. In Ireland and Belgium, for example, over half of the foreign population resident is from other EU15 countries; in Spain, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, the proportion of foreign population from the EU15 is between 30 and 40 % (closer to the EU15 average of 30.6 %); while for the rest of the countries, the large majority of their foreign populations are from countries outside the EU15.

Central and Eastern Europe provides substantial shares of the foreign populations resident in particularly Finland (46.8 %), but also in Germany, Greece, Italy and Sweden and to a lesser extent Denmark. Africa is a key source of the foreign populations resident in Portugal and France and a significant source for Italy, Spain and the Netherlands followed by Belgium and the United Kingdom. Finally, Asia is a key source of foreign population for the United Kingdom (mainly from the Indian sub-continent), Denmark, Italy, Greece, Sweden and Finland. The immigration of foreign-born workers and their families to the UK is a trend which appears set to continue in some form.

2.4 Population Ageing

The population of the world aged 60 years and over increased from 205 million and 8 % in 1950 to approximately 688 million and 11 % in 2006. By 2050, the number will have increased to around 2 billion and 22 %. By 2030, half the population of Western Europe will be over 50, one quarter of the population of the developed world will be over 65, and one quarter of the population of Asia will be over 60.  This is historically unprecedented. Indeed, it makes the 20^th century the last century of youth, the 21^st century heralds a new demography- that of maturity.

These dynamics are the result as much of falling fertility as of increasing longevity as across the world women are choosing not to have large numbers of children, to delay or even reject first childbirth. This coupled with increasing longevity sees ageing flood out across the globe. Indeed the scale of ageing over the next 50 years is immense. According to the United Nations forecasts, the population aged 60 years and over is expected to increase from 20 to more than 30 % by the year 2050 in the more developed regions, from 8 to 20 % in the less developed regions, and from just 5 to 10 % in the least developed regions. And these are projections from incremental longevity. What will be the demographic consequences if radical longevity becomes a possibility for entire generations? The prospect of a relatively long and healthy life is real for most of us and there lies the challenge and the opportunity for every individual, country and government in a world of increasing longevity.

For the UK, as for most other countries in Western and Northern Europe, the demographic situation is defined principally by the combination of three dominant trends: a fertility rate that has been below replacement level for several decades now and is thought unlikely to rise above it; unprecedented and continuing declines in late-life mortality; and relatively high levels of inward migration. This has already resulted in a UK society which is characterised by a decline in the proportion of younger people (through falling fertility), an increase in the proportion and number of older people (through both falling fertility and mortality), and a more ethnically diverse composition (through increased migration).

The challenges posed by these trends can be grouped into four main categories: those that arise from the changing age structure of the population – specifically the increase in the proportion of older people and the decrease in the proportion of younger people (i.e. changing dependency ratios); those that arise from the ageing of the older population (i.e. more people surviving in ‘late old age’); those that arise from inward migration and the growth of migrant communities within the host society; those associated with persistent below-replacement fertility (i.e. population decline as opposed to population growth). It is evident that these challenges are not independent of each other, and furthermore that trends in one driver of demographic change may offset or compound the impact of trends in another. For example, changes in the age structure of the population are driven partly by the ageing of the older population and partly by below-replacement fertility. Large-scale inward migration is likely to have a temporary effect on the age structure of the population and will delay the trend towards natural population decline inherent in below-replacement fertility. Policy makers need to have an understanding of the challenges and opportunities of population change that fully integrates all three of the main drivers of change. Furthermore, the challenges that demographic change poses for the UK cannot be understood however solely in terms of the demography of the UK. In an increasingly globalised world, we cannot suppose that the UK will be immune from the impact of global patterns of demographic change. Nor can the demography of the UK be understood apart from these same patterns of change.

The UK’s past experience of mortality, migration and fertility is written into its age structure. Like the rest of the EU, it has moved from positive demographic momentum (growth) into negative demographic momentum (shrink), (though in practice mediated by inward migration). This second demographic transition is being mirrored in other parts of the world, particularly Asia as fertility falls from the replacement levels of classic demographic transition theory. A third demographic transition driven by international migration is also beginning to change regional and international population structures. It is currently uncertain how low fertility will fall in Europe and some of the more advanced Asian countries. A combination of further declining family size ideals, continued postponement of childbearing and bio-medical factors affecting both men and women may well lead to fertility levels so far below replacement level as to have dramatic consequences for the social and economic structures of society. The recently proposed “Low Fertility Trap Hypothesis” assumes a bifurcation among industrialised countries under which the lowest fertility countries would see further fertility declines while another set of countries would experience stable fertility only slightly below replacement level. Alongside these lie new perspectives on mortality forecasting, which acknowledge that there is much greater scope for reductions in mortality at higher ages than previously acknowledged.

UK population change also needs to be seen in the wider context of globalisation. It is essential therefore to understand the ways in which global patterns of demographic change are likely to present both policy challenges and opportunities for the UK. A key question, for example, is whether we should expect demographic convergence to accompany socio-economic convergence and the role that migration has to play in this process. Yet, globalisation also needs to acknowledge the powerful dynamic of global ageing. As restrictions on the movement of human and financial capital around the world are eased, demographic change becomes a potent force for change in the global economy. Exactly how these changes will play out remains poorly understood, though some of the outlines are clear. Large shifts in national age distributions are likely to affect national saving patterns, capital requirements and international capital flows, particularly between the more and less developed worlds. The demand for health and social care workers in more developed countries is already increasing, and is set to increase further at the same time as the supply of younger workers will tighten. The implications for the host and source countries’ welfare systems, and for the family and social support structures in the source countries, are considerable. National provision of education, health and social care, housing, transport, and basic infrastructure will all be affected.

The future promises many similar scenarios across many different sectors of the national economy, with skilled labour being pulled out of the country as well as pulled in. The whole question of UK identity becomes important here. For example, the tension between multiple identities with allegiance to both source and host country, and between ethnic and national sentiments. Broader questions include to what extent can and should immigration mitigate certain negative effects of demographic ageing; what policies should be developed for better integrating these migrants, in particular young people?; how could the legislative and financial frameworks and incentives combat discrimination and promote integration of immigrants?

As the UK demographically ages, one of the main policy challenges is to enable individuals to maintain their health and productive capacity for as long as possible. We need to consider how the organisation of work be best be adapted to a new distribution between the generations, with fewer young people and great numbers of older workers, to take into account the specific needs of different age groups; how parents’ integration in working life can be facilitated and how they can achieve a balance between flexibility and security to bring up their children, to train and update their skills to meet the demands of the labour market. We need to decide what is  an appropriate balance between investing in early education and in adult and life long training schemes. There is also concern over the intergenerational contract and changing patterns of intergenerational solidarity as societies age.

3.   Uncertainties in the challenge area of Demographic Change

3.1 Uncertainties around the drivers of fertility

• There is uncertainty about the future of human fertility – especially in those countries which already have fertility rates below replacement level – as to whether  it will  continue to fall or to ‘recover’ and then stabilise at the kind of level that the UN assumes in its medium-variant projections.

• It is uncertain how low fertility will fall in Europe and some of the more advanced Asian countries.

• Will low fertility countries fall into the Low Fertility Trap? The “Low Fertility Trap Hypothesis” proposes that a combination of further declining family size ideals, continued postponement of childbearing and bio-medical factors affecting both men and women may well lead to fertility levels so far below replacement level as to have dramatic consequences for the social and economic structures of society. Some demographers (Lutz 2006), for example, have suggested that countries with very low fertility could get stuck in a low fertility whereby social and economic adjustments by institutions and individuals would make it difficult for fertility to rise to replacement levels again.

• Do the new patterns of fertility in Europe suggest that we have moved beyond the former relationship of fertility and female employment? Cultural change has resulted in young women prioritising economic employment over child bearing, so that given the choice, a growing number will remain childless. Thus those countries which make it easier for a women to combine economic activity and child bearing are seeing a rise in fertility, those in which it is still difficult to combine the two, are seeing a dramatic decline.
  • For example, Southern Europe has both low fertility levels, and relatively low female labour force participation. In part this is because it is difficult for mothers to maintain economic activity and thus many withdraw. In Italy, for example, where total fertility is approximately 1, only 60 % of females aged 25-49 are active in the labour force.
  • This compares with the Scandinavian countries where compared 84 % of women 25-49 are in the labour market in Denmark where fertility is 1.73. The experience of Sweden shows that extensive social policy measures to reduce the opportunity costs of having children, and help women to remain in employment after giving birth,  maintains or even increases fertility levels.

• How important a role is the postponement of childbearing? This operates in two broad ways.
  • Firstly is the argument that current low fertility cohorts will eventually increase their cohort level though late reproduction.
  • Secondly it is asserted that postponement of childbearing reduces the actual number of children born. In England and Wales, almost 10 % of the 1946-generation of women were childless by age 40. This had risen to almost 20 % for the 1960-generation.
  • Lesthaeghe’s detailed analysis of 5 western European countries (Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, and France) examines the influence of postponement on cohort fertility rates. This study points out that all 6 countries reached period total fertility levels of 2 or below (that is replacement) by 1975. From thence onwards a new pattern of fertility emerged, characterised by postponement at younger ages, with varying degrees of catch-up at later ages. Indeed, those countries in which current cohorts postponed first birth, had a rapid catch-up during their 30’s, while those who had earlier first births, had a much lower rates of births post-30. This thus accounted for the very similar period total fertility rates of between 1.3 and 1.7 for all 5 countries.

• How does fertility relate to desired family size? The European Commission in 2004 reported that Europeans would like to have 2.3 children on average, but they are in fact having only 1.5 children. In 2005 a second communication from the Commission states that European families do not find the environment in which they live conducive to child-bearing (European Commission 2005).

3.2 Uncertainties around the drivers of mortality reduction

• There are many uncertainties around the relationship of socio-economic status (SES) and mortality
  • Is the association between SES and well-established lifestyle risk factors for cardiovascular disease and cancer the key to understanding differential mortality rates?
  • Are differences in lifetime access to the rewards and privileges of social life independent determinants of the mortality gradient? And;
  • At what stage in life are these various causal factors operative?
  • How important are childhood influences on future health or development in-utero when compared with adult socio-economic status?
  • Does the social gradient in mortality persist into retirement and old age?

• There are many uncertainties around the relationship of gender and mortality
  • Although most scientists take the view that biological factors play an important role in explaining this sex gap in life expectancy there is as yet no consensus about the nature of the biological mechanisms involved (Austad 2006, Luy 2003).
  • Gender differences in lifestyle may be a strong contributor.  For most of the century men were more likely to be heavy drinkers or smokers than women. It has been estimated, for example, (Waldron 1986, 1995) that about 50% of the sex differences in mortality in heart disease can be explained by differences in smoking behaviour; and more than 90% of the differences in lung cancer mortality.
  • However Rigby and Dorling’s (2007) study of mortality data for 22 countries over 150 years suggests that although cigarette smoking may account for the rise in excess male mortality for cohorts born in the first decades of the 20^th century, it cannot account for the relatively slow improvements in mortality in younger males across all the rich countries of the world in recent decades.

• There are uncertainties around the contribution of various diseases

• • What is the role of decline in CVD/circulatory disease? The contribution of declining mortality from CVD/circulatory disease to overall mortality decline has been significant over the past few years.  It has been estimated, for example, that reduced CVD mortality added more than 5 of the 8.8 years added to life expectancy at birth in the USA since the middle of the 20^th century (Cutler 2004). In Germany, between 1962 and 2002, reduced CVD mortality accounted for about 60% of the increased expectancy life of both men and women aged 65 years (Klenk et al 2007). In the UK, over the last ten years (1995-2005), the age-standardised mortality rate for CHD fell from 94 to 48 per 100,000; with death rates falling by about one half in both the 55-64 year age group and the 65-74 age group.  However a recent analysis of trends in CHD mortality in younger adults – they appear to be flattening out – suggests that increases in obesity may be starting to offset the decline in other risk factors among younger cohorts (O’Flaherty et al 2008).
  • What is the role of decline in stroke? Ten years ago there was not much evidence of declining incidence of stroke. Now, however, there is an accumulating body of evidence of reductions in age-specific incidence rates for both CHD and stroke (Goldacre et al 2008). Certainly some of the decline in stroke mortality is caused by delayed onset, and reflects reductions in pre-morbid risk factors (Rothwell et al 2004).  In Japan, a dramatic reduction in stroke mortality is the main contributor to the increase in life expectancy at birth between 1970 and 2000 (Yoshinaga 2005). Stroke mortality in the UK has been declining more slowly than CHD mortality in recent years.
  • What is the role of decline in cancer? Taken as a whole, UK age-standardised mortality from cancer changed very little in the second half of the 20th century (Quinn et al 2001). More recently however, mortality rates have declined substantially (10-15%) among both men and women (Westlake & Cooper 2008). Cancer incidence, however, declined by only 1% between 1993 and 2004; and it actually increased among women (with breast cancer accounting for much of the increase).

o    If cancer incidence continues to increase will mortality still fall? The fall in mortality from lung cancer is due mainly to fall in the incident of disease. The fall in mortality from breast cancer in women and from prostate cancer in men has occurred in spite of increasing incidence. The fall in mortality from colorectal cancer is occurring against the background of stable incidence. Much of the fall in the incidence of lung cancer in men has been offset by a rapid and substantial increase in the incidence of cancer of the prostate.

• What is the changing impact of healthcare on mortality? Will it continue to have an impact? How much life expectancy can we expect to gain in rich societies without the intensive application of scientific medicine? It is argued that modern medicine is now the main contributor to ongoing mortality decline; and it is as a result of continuing improvements in medical care that we should expect mortality reductions in the future (Cutler et al 2006). This was not the case in the recent past when emphasis was placed on nutrition and public health.

• What is the role of drugs? One recent analysis of the relationship between national variations in levels of pharmaceutical expenditure (within the OECD) and mortality estimates that a doubling of drug expenditures adds about one year of life expectancy to a 40 year old male (Shaw et al 2005). The effect, they reckon, is comparable to what may be achieved by modest changes in smoking behaviour or in the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables.

• How much of the gains are due to cohort effects? Sceptics about the likelihood of repeating over the next 50 or so years the reductions in late life mortality that were seen in the second half of the 20th century ask whether or not we should regard some of these gains as ‘one-off’ effects (Carnes & Olshansky 2005). Willetts (2004) is one of several researchers who have looked at UK data and found strong evidence to suggest that people born during the period 1925-1945 have shown higher rates of mortality improvement at all ages than the cohorts born before them or after them. They are, on this view, a lucky cohort; they appear to have benefited from various social changes in a way that is unlikely to be repeated. 

• Can we ever eliminate cause of death altogether?
  • Olshansky et al (1990) estimated that hypothetical cures for all circulatory diseases, diabetes and cancer would increase life expectancy at birth in the USA by 15.8 years for females and 15.3 years for males (beyond 1985 levels) – equivalent to a 75% reduction in mortality from all causes.
  • It was the sheer magnitude of this requirement that led Olshansky et al (2001) to reaffirm that life expectancy at birth was unlikely to exceed 85 years.
  • Olshanksy & Carnes (2004) argue that “a repetition of the large, rapid gains in life expectancy observed during the twentieth century is extremely unlikely” in this century without the technological capability “to slow the rate of aging”.
  • Alternatviely Oeppen and Vaupel (2002) have insisted that with the mortality data now available to us it does in fact seem more likely than not that we will see a repetition of the gains in the second half of the of the 20th century.

• Can the gains in human longevity be maintained? Will the increase in active life expectancy continue throughout this century? Are we reaching the point of diminishing returns? Mortality reductions in the oldest-old – the population over 85 – have shown no sign of slowing down in recent years.  In Japan, annual mortality among female centenarians declined from 50% to 35% between 1975 and 2000 (Robine et al (2003).

• Does the data on the oldest-old show any signs of a compression of mortality? In an analysis of Japanese mortality from 1950 to 2000, Cheung & Robine (2007) show not only that there has been a strong and linear increase in the modal age at death over the last 50 years, but that the standard deviation of ages at death above the mode stopped decreasing in the mid-1980s for women and the 1990s for men.  In other words, data from the country with the lowest mortality in the world show no sign of a compression of mortality.

• Are there limits to longevity? There remains a widely accepted common belief that there exists a maximum human life span of around 120 years. This has if anything been confirmed in the public imagination by the death in 1997 of  Jeanne Calment, a French women of 122 years – the world’s reliably verified oldest living human. The fact that the reliably verified oldest man died around the same time at 115 also confirms another widely held belief that women are in some way programmed to live longer than men. There are thus a number of questions concerning this pace of increasing life expectancy, and whether there exists a limit to the span of a human life.

3.3 Uncertainties around the drivers of migration

The United Kingdom had a net immigration of approximately a quarter of a million annually at the beginning of the 21^st century. There is an inherent attraction for potential immigrants to the economically affluent countries of most of Europe, which as we have seen have relatively low levels of fertility. There are considerable uncertainties, however:

• It is uncertain as to whether migration for work will result in increased immigration or out migration of labour
• The role of environmental refugees in the migration flows to the UK are uncertain
• The ability of migration to mitigate the effect of population ageing over the next twenty years is uncertain

In particular, the migration flows to/from/within the Central and Eastern European countries remain difficult to register, which is particularly frustrating as since 1989 there have been dramatic increases in migration flows within and from these countries. In the period 1960-1990, it is estimated that the annual average number of net migrations (officially recorded) from Central and Eastern Europe to western countries was less than 450,000 (Frejka 1996; Okolski 1998). By the early 1990s this figure is estimated to have reached approximately 850,000 (Garson, Redor and Lemaitre 1997).

Similarly, there are dramatic differences between countries in terms of levels of immigration and emigration but also between the levels of immigration and emigration for individual countries and this is likely to continue. For example as we entered the 21^st century, immigration levels exceed emigration levels in each EU country giving positive net migration in all cases. Only four countries – Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom – had annual immigration levels in excess of 250,000, with France at around 120,000 and all other countries less than 100,000. Only two countries – Germany and the United Kingdom – had significant levels of annual emigration with Germany losing approximately 500,000 persons and the UK just less than 200,000. In all other countries, the level of emigration amounts to less than 50,000 persons.

• What is the role of migration in mitigating other demographic effects? Many authors have considered the demographic impact of immigration in populations with below replacement fertility levels.
  • For example, Lesthaeghe et al (1988) show that for the twelve members of what was then the European Community overall population decline in the first part of the 21^st century could be averted if immigration levels of approximately 1 million per annum could be attained.
  • Ulrich (1998), however, showed that even with relatively high levels of immigration, the German population would begin to decline in the near future.
  • Wanner (2000) revealed that without migration the Swiss population would decline to 5.6 million in 2050 rather than the projected 7 million.

• To what extent can and should immigration mitigate certain negative effects of demographic ageing?
  • Le Bras (1991) explored the consequences of post-war migration on the populations of a number of OECD countries and concluded likewise that only modest rejuvenating effects on the population could be observed. The average age of the population in these selected countries had been lowered by between 0.4 and 1.4 years as a result of immigration.

• What is the role of migration on the labour force? It is often assumed that international immigration rejuvenates the labour force and offsets age-related dependency costs, simply because immigrants are young economically active persons. However, contemporary migration experience does not support this assumption.
  • Coleman (1995) states that the cumulative effects of migration alone on the population’s age structure had been rather limited because the age structures of immigrants and emigrants were quite similar and because the level of migration after all is quite small in relation to the size of natural change in the population.

• Will skilled labour be pulled out of the UK as well as pulled in?

o    Migration flow data are problematical especially with regard to emigration, which if registered at all is often underestimated (Salt, Singleton and Hogarth 1994; Salt, Clarke and Schmidt 2000).

o    In the case of the United Kingdom, for example, Coleman (1995) showed that post-war immigration simply neutralised the previously dominant pattern of emigration. Furthermore, without this immigration from the Commonwealth countries, and without the additional births of these immigrants, the population of the United Kingdom would have been 3 million persons less than was the case in the early 1990s.

• What are the ways in which global patterns of demographic change are likely to present both policy challenges and opportunities for the UK? A key question, for example, is whether we should expect demographic convergence to accompany socio-economic convergence and the role that migration has to play in this process.

3.4 Uncertainties around population ageing

• What will be the impact of population ageing on the intergenerational transfer of resources? Most countries in the world have developed public institutions for transferring resources and support between working generations to dependent younger and older generations. Population ageing is bringing about such large changes in the relative size of these generational groupings that policy-makers have to re-consider the operation of the institutions that channel public resources and support between generations. In addition, declining fertility affects the collective capacity of society to provide these goods and assist with the problems that face the ageing individual.

• How will these trends develop over the course of this century? In the developed world, for example, there are relatively large birth cohorts now in mid-life, that are longer-lived and have lower fertility than their parents. These three factors mean that their entry into old age will generate what is sometimes described as an ‘age wave’ or ‘demographic shock’ that will subsequently subside as smaller cohorts take their place. Old age dependency ratios will increase sharply as the consequences of rapid and large declines in fertility work themselves through the population. However, the continued increases in longevity, including potential radical increases due to new generation technological advances, accompanied by persistent falls in fertility, mean that the population structure of both the developed and developing regions may well dramatically alter over the course of this century.

• There is considerable policy-relevant uncertainty. Current assumptions on longevity, for example, may turn to be too conservative due, for example, to the speed of technological advance in biomedicine, or indeed, too optimistic due, for example, to the increasing prevalence of obesity. The extreme scenarios we now have to consider include the possibility that biomedicine will enable young children today to remain active and healthy as centenarians as well as the possibility that their life expectancy will be less than that of their parents.

• What adjustments have to be made to a low-mortality and low-fertility future? While policy makers recognise that they have to help their societies adjust to a low-mortality and low-fertility future, they are unclear as to how large these adjustments will have to be. The adjustments required in order to finance the additional consumption of longer-lived population under conditions of declining fertility clearly pose major allocation and distributional challenges.
  • As individuals we may be required to reconsider the way in which we allocate consumption and resources between different stages of the life course.
  • As societies, we have to decide how to allocate the burden of adjusting to demographic change across (i) different parts of the life course and (ii) different generations.

• How will the powerful dynamic of global ageing affect globalisation? As restrictions on the movement of human and financial capital around the world are eased, demographic change becomes a potent force for change in the global economy. Exactly how these changes will play out remains poorly understood, though some of the outlines are clear.
  • Large shifts in national age distributions are likely to affect national saving patterns, capital requirements and international capital flows, particularly between the more and less developed worlds.
  • The demand for health and social care workers in more developed countries is already increasing, and is set to increase further at the same time as the supply of younger workers will tighten.
  • The implications for the host and source countries’ welfare systems, and for the family and social support structures in the source countries, are considerable.
  • National provision of education, health and social care, housing, transport, and basic infrastructure will all be affected.

• How will governments and employers enable individuals to maintain their health and productive capacity for as long as possible? The labour market will face increasing skills shortages and a large proportion of older workers, and adapt to train and retain older workers. New cohorts will expect and demand increasingly flexible working patterns.  Home is likely to develop as a place of work, education and health care.
  • We need to consider how the organisation of work be best be adapted to a new distribution between the generations, with fewer young people and great numbers of older workers, to take into account the specific needs of different age groups;
  • How parents’ integration in working life can be facilitated and how they can achieve a balance between flexibility and security to bring up their children, to train and update their skills to meet the demands of the labour market.
  • We need to decide what is an appropriate balance between investing in early education and in adult and life long training schemes.
  • There is also concern over the intergenerational contract and changing patterns of intergenerational solidarity as societies age.

It is clear that population ageing will lead to hitherto unseen consequences:

• More generations will survive next to each other than ever before; people will increasingly pass income, care and support down as well as up through the generations. What will be the new forms of intergenerational solidarity as intergenerational transfers and justice move to the fore of policy concern and will influence the new ethics of our societies?
• How will individual life courses change, both professionally and personally, as we recognise our personal longevity? Individuals will have to re-think their own personal life courses and when and how they wish to mix education and work.
• How will societal structure and organisation change to keep up with the new demographic reality? We will move increasingly into second, third and even fourth partnerships with extended families of a complicated and demanding nature. The family as a supportive environment will change, though how is unclear. Communities will change both spatially and socially.
• How will social and economic behaviour adapt? Consumption will vary between ages, groups and generations and will not be the same as previous generations. People’s disposable income will need to be distributed between increasing leisure, education, health care, mobility, and other demands.
• How will infrastructure and services, such as housing and transport, education and health care provision, adapt to a large percentage of older adults’ needs and capacities?

4.   Trends in the challenge area of  Generations and the Life Course which we can reasonably confidently expect to continue to 2025

In recent decades, Britain, like many countries across the developed world, has witnessed an evolving pattern of change in the nature of family structures, roles and relationships. In particular, there are significant demographic changes taking place that are having a direct influence on patterns of family formation, as well as on relationships between family members.

These include shifts towards fewer marriages, more cohabitation and more births outside marriage; increases in divorce, remarriage and reconstituted families; and an increase in the proportion of lone parent and smaller families.

In addition to these broad trends, population ageing and the extension of the life course, point to a renewal of multigenerational family relationships, particularly regarding the role of grandparents.

It can be argued that the major trend on current 21^st century families has been transformation in relation to marriage. Today’s family picture reflects a shift away from the married couple family that dominated for much of the 20^th century. While it remains that over half of adults still live as married couples, their percentage is declining. Census figures over the second half of the 20^th century show marked declines from 68% in 1971 to just over 50% in 2001. Alongside this, and as in many European countries, the average age of marriage has increased. Parenthood is also occurring later. Kiernan (2004:118) has shown that in the mid-1970s, the average age of first time brides in Britain was clustered in the 22-24 years old range, whereby by the year 2000 they were clustered in the late 20s, predominantly at age 27. It should also be noted that this masks considerable variation in the age of first time mothers by social class and education.

One of the important drivers behind these trends is the concomitant rise in cohabitation, which doubled between the 1991 and 2001 censuses. While men and women living together outside marriage is certainly not new, there are clear rises in incidence since the 1980s in young people living together for sustained periods either as a precursor or instead of marriage. A proportion of cohabiting couples are same sex couples. Since the Civil Partnership Act came into force in January 2005, there have been over 20,000 such partnerships. The number of people living alone has also more than doubled between 1971 and 2005, from 3 to 7 million (Social Trends 2007).

One change which has received much political and media attention, and which also forms a central aspect of arguments around family breakdown, relates to patterns of divorce. In Britain, rates of divorce have increased steadily since the 1970s culminating in the current disbanding of around 40% of marriages (Harper 2003). Although, as Harper (2003) goes on to state, this is counterbalanced by the fact that those marriages that do not end in divorce will be longer because of increased life expectancy for both women and men. Accordingly, divorce, along with the greater degree of children born outside marriage, has contributed significantly to changes in household and family composition. On one hand, the proportion of children living in lone parent families in Britain more than tripled between 1972 and 2006 to 24% (Social Trends 2007). On the other hand, is the rise in the number of step- and reconstituted families. Although precise figures are difficult to come by, there is little doubt that numbers have been growing as a consequence of divorce and remarriage (Allan and Crow 2001).

Demographic changes along with new family forms are also impacting upon the position of older people within families. It is increasingly argued that families will be increasingly characterised by multigenerational bonds beyond the household, particularly between grandparents and grandchildren. Recent UK figures suggest that around a third of the population are grandparents and will remain so for an average of 25 years (Harper 2005). Moreover, three-quarters of the UK population will at some stage attain grandparenthood (Dench & Ogg 2002). With the expansion of the grandparent role across the span of an individual’s life, it is likely to occur while people are still engaged in numerous other social roles including work, associational and other family roles. In the United Kingdom, this context is reflected by current policy concerns over the role of grandparents (Dench & Ogg 2002), particularly around childcare (Wheelock & Jones 2002) and as a resource allowing lone mothers greater participation in the labour market (Harper et al 2004).

Taken as a whole, these trends illustrate the point that ever less and less people live in a household characterised in terms of a “simple” nuclear family comprising of a heterosexual couple and their two dependent children. In attempting to make sense of the increased diversity and fluidity in family relations, at least two key ideas from family sociology emerge – “individualisation” (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 2002) and “negotiation” (Finch & Mason 1995). According to the individualisation thesis, individuals, over the latter half of the 20^th century have been gradually emancipated from traditional norms and, as a result, are able to exert a greater degree of control over their lives. This may be reflected in changing normative understandings about when the “right” age to marry is, about greater sexual freedom, challenging gender norms, and increased opportunities for educational, labour market and social mobility for women. Evidently there is much more flexibility in becoming a couple and whether people co-reside. Younger people are marrying less and are doing so at older ages. There also appear more choices around family and work, albeit choices which are gendered. People are far more able to choose the kinds of intimate relationships that are important to them, and are more likely to end them if they no long accord to their personal preferences and objectives.

Increasing numbers of families live with the reality of their members being dispersed across a wide geographical area. Research has shown that geographical distance between older parents and their adult children has on average grown over the past decade or so, in response to growing demands for a geographically mobile workforce in the wake of globalisation (Hoff 2006b). Young families move where jobs are – from rural areas across Britain to the metropolitan hubs London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, or Edinburgh. Although still a rare exception when seen in relation to the total population, growing numbers of highly-qualified workers have moved abroad.

4.1 Families will continue to change in size and extent.

The relationship between household and family will continue to evolve; family roles and relationships will continue to evolve and be substituted by both kin and non-kin.

• Postponement of life transitions; A combination of factors has resulted in contemporary Europeans delaying a number of life transitions, which has knock-on effects for other life transitions. Young adults are on average leaving the parental home later than in previous cohorts, forming their first stable adult unions later, are getting married later, and postponing the birth of their first child.
• Marriage/divorce: Parenthood has become increasingly detached from the institution of marriage. Marriage rates have steadily decreased in England and Wales since the early 1970s, from about 420,000 in 1970 to 275,000 in 2000. The declining popularity of marriage was accompanied by a trend towards postponement of marriage. Not only have the absolute numbers of marriages declined over that period. An increasing number of existing marriages were prematurely dissolved through divorce and this is likely to continue.

The above-described changes in the age structure of the population and in family formation have resulted in subtle changes of intergenerational relationships within the family.

• The combination of an extended lifespan and the existence of fewer family members due to lower fertility have resulted in a narrowing of the more recently born generations and a verticalisation of family structures, which were dubbed ‘beanpole families’ (Bengtson, Rosenthal and Burton 1990). “Individuals will thus grow older having more vertical than horizontal linkages in the family.” (Harper 2006: 181).
• Children and parents can now expect to live in very long-term relationships, spanning half a century or even more. Recent research found a number of positive effects of increasing longevity on intergenerational solidarity (Bengtson 2001; Silverstein 2006).
• On the other hand, the above-described trend towards increasing geographical distances between ageing parents and their adult children diminishes the potential for instrumental support (Shelton and Grundy 2000; Hoff 2006b).
• Grandparenthood has been influenced by these changes in a complex manner. On the one hand, longer life has heightened the likelihood of grandchildren having four living grandparents at birth, as well as at the transition to adulthood. The percentage of Americans having at least one grandparent when the grandchild reaches the age of 40 has increased from 1 % in the year 1900 to 21 % in the year 2000 (Uhlenberg and Kirby 1998). The other side of the coin is of course that grandparents see their grandchildren growing up, in many cases having children of their own.
• On the other hand, declining fertility has resulted in fewer grandchildren: in the US, the number of grandchildren per woman has declined from about 12 in the year 1900 to about 6 in the year 1980, with a further declining trend (Uhlenberg and Kirby 1998). The combined effects of rising life expectancy (more years spent with grandchildren) and falling fertility (fewer grandchildren) may even have unexpected side effects, such as fit and wealthy grandparents competing for the attention of fewer grandchildren (Uhlenberg 2005).

4.2 The complex adaptations required at both individual and social level as reconstituted family structures become the norm will continue;

• Plurality of family forms: ‘new’ family forms include lone parents, cohabiting couples with children, families ‘living-apart-together’, and so-called ‘patchwork families’ or ‘reconstituted families’. ‘Patchwork’ or ‘reconstituted’ families provide an excellent example of the growing complexity of family life – they refer to the combination of more than two family networks following separation/divorce. Individuals may end up having children with partners from different relationships, with each adult union adding a new set of relationships with members of another family network while (at least to some extent) trying to maintain contact with those from previous relationships.
• These trends towards plurality of family forms have influenced the relations between ageing marriage partners, old parents and their adult children, and between grandparents and grandchildren. Although couples may have the chance to grow old together, there is a higher percentage of divorce at advanced age than before. Consequently, relationships with children have changed as well. Older parents may have relationships with biological as well as with stepchildren. This may result in a larger variety of parent-child relationships, but could also imply decreased reliability of support at times of need. Grandparents may become more important to grandchildren when parents separate. Grandparents’ rights to maintain the relationship with their grandchildren after divorce has become a hot legal issue, arguably to be considered in divorce settlements (Ferguson 2004). The rising proportion of single parent families has lead to more responsibilities for grandparents in respect to financial transfers and (grand-)child care provision.
• Childlessness. Another challenge to family life is the growing prevalence of childlessness. As many as a fifth of Americans aged 65 years and over is without spouse and child and this looks set to continue. (Dykstra and Hagestad 2007a). Although childlessness has become less stigmatised than in the past, people without children still have to justify themselves for not having children. “Stereotypes suggest that those who remain childless in marriage are avoiding social responsibility and are being self-indulgent.” (Dykstra and Hagestad 2007a: 1284). The pathways leading into childlessness vary. People can be without children for very different reasons – involuntary or as a matter of choice and the timing of life transitions is crucial for having children. Postponed lifetime transitions have knock-on effects and effectively blocks second chances for having children. In addition, childlessness makes more of a difference in men’s than in women’s lives, i.e. the differences between childless men and fathers are more pronounced than those between childless women and mothers.

4.3 The immigration of foreign-born workers and their families to the UK is a trend which appears set to continue in some form.

As a consequence, transnational family relations have become a reality of family life in Britain. Long-distance relationships between ageing parents and their adult children, as well as their grandchildren can still be maintained thanks to communication technologies (telephone, email, VoIP, etc.). But such relationships are different from face-to-face contact and cannot substitute physical contact. Moreover, long-distance family relations change the nature of family solidarity. Whereas financial or emotional support do not require physical presence and can be provided across long distances, instrumental assistance can no longer be given by the family.

4.4 Generations

• The eroding of conventional intergenerational superiority will continue as children as well as young adults question the rules laid down by older adults, in particular given possible differential cohort psychological development. Individualisation, the priority of the individual over the collective, enhanced by technological advances may well move down through the age groups to very young children.
• New digital technology will continue to enable and encourage individualisation and introduces a complex array of peer and other reference groups beyond the traditional hierarchy of parent and teacher.
• Generational cooperation and competition will continue in some form, though this will probably be modified as the blurring of boundaries between individual identities continues.
• Technology and communications, differential access to social capital, urbanisation, labour market factors and health technology, will continue to impact upon including intergenerational relationships in both the private (family) and public spheres.
• It is clear that future cohorts will continue to be different from present ones. However the influence of life course factors on modifying cohorts’ behaviour is unclear.

4.5  Life Course

• The fixed boundaries between childhood, adolescence, young and older adulthood will continue to blur along with other identities, however scientific knowledge of development may introduce new boundaries.
• The increasingly complex worlds and the collapsing of life stages away from current chronological barriers will continue to allow individuals to adopt a more extensive perspective across the life course.
• Technology and communications, differential access to social capital, urbanisation, labour market factors, health technology, will continue to impact both upon individual life experiences and upon the contexts within which we experiences these.
• The development of social and cognitive skills in childhood is likely to remain crucial as a foundation for all other types of learning across the life course.
• Our understanding of mental capacity, development psychology and how this is being affected by interaction with the new digital world from a very early age, will increase in the light of new scientific advances.

4.6  Identity

• Identity boundaries – gender, cohort, generation, age, race, ability, health, capacity – will continue to blur.
• At the other end of the spectrum, poverty and social inequality may increase for those groups unable to access such capital, or new technologies may eradicate the social inequalities we see today.
• Inequalities drawn along new lines – gender, cohort, generation, age, race, ability, health, capacity – may arise, or be removed.
• Adulthood will continue to be a time of luxury to delay transitions into responsibility. This gives more time to explore and expand each life stage and the demand for education to help fulfil these desires may increase.
• Negotiation will continue. Coupled with the notion of “individualisation”, is the idea of “negotiation”. Relationships between men and women, parents and children, to a greater degree involve negotiation. Families are not simply “givens” but need to be worked at, particularly when who is and who is not “family” is fluid and subject to change over time.
• Relations between parents and (adult) children will continue to be increasingly characterised by democratisation, mutual agreement, respect and reciprocity and disclosure of information. Like individualisation, the breakdown of ascribed social norms, provides a degree of space within which to negotiate.
• Multi-generational relationships will move to such patterns of negotiation. The current generation of grandparents are healthier and wealthier in their later life. This provides opportunities for them to develop meaningful and reciprocal relationships within children, not least around education and learning. However, these bonds, whilst strong, still require negotiation. Most grandparents want to help out, but they do not necessarily want to be providing childcare on a full time basis. This is exemplified in recent debates around grandparents’ rights as well as grandparent support groups offering advice as to how establish ground rules with parents around childcare.
• Despite the differences between them, all ethnic groups, including South Asians, are viewed as moving towards the “modern individualism” end of the continuum, with lower rates of marriage and higher rates of cohabitation and single parenthood, albeit at different rates. Berrington (1994), over a decade ago, found that whilst almost all Asians do get married, the second generation are marrying later than their parents, suggesting some assimilation in patterns towards those of the white population. Arranged marriage is a common form of marriage amongst South Asian groups. However, these patterns are also impacted upon by “western” notions of individual choice, with the individuals who are marrying being given more opportunities to influence partner selection than previously (Crow and Allan 2001: 60).

4.7 The Role of Science and Communication Technology in Shaping Contemporary and Future Family Relations

Developments in communication networks and information technology are already shaping family relations, not least amongst minoritised families dispersed by international migration. The rising availability (and affordability) of air travel, telecommunications and other new digital forms of communication are further encouraging the development of transnational ties on a global scale. This is occurring however, not just amongst those with a history of migration, but amongst a wider range of families whose children, siblings, parents and/or grandparents are living and working for varying amounts of time abroad.

• In some families, we will see the internet and other new and advanced telecommunication systems acting as a principal means by which family members and friends establish frequent and regular contact. Recent developments such as SKYPE and VONAGE may be responding to, as well as normalising, these demands. SKYPE claims to have 309 million registered members worldwide and 12 million users at peak times (BBC News 2005). Like SMS messaging previously, SKYPE is becoming part of the everyday terminology of family and friends. Again the availability and affordability of this software is key. Increasingly these facilities will be used by both children and parents to contact each other.
• One tangible impact of technology on family life is the shift in the work-home relationship. For example, as a result of digital forms of communication people are increasingly able to take their work home, and to combine working from both office and home to suit their family and caring obligations. This has become a particular trend within dual earner families. It conversely may lead to a colonisation of family space and time by work space and time. For example in “mum is working” times or working during the post-bedtime shift. At certain moments, the space between working and not working becomes blurred, for example, internet searching, reading newspapers and magazines. Work and family domains are also blurred by the expectation, generated by these technologies, that individuals are, and should, be available all the time.
• There will also be transformations in the relationship between emotional closeness and physical contact. Family members scattered across continents will view themselves as emotionally close because they are making the efforts to stay in touch despite their considerable spatial barriers. In turn, the possibility of Video calls, which already account for a quarter of all traffic on SKYPE, could change the way in which family members perceive and understand intimacy and the link between physical contact and emotional closeness. It is interesting to note that people who use these facilities regularly will use terms and phrases like ‘intimate’, ‘close’, ‘just like being in the same room’ to describe these forms of communication.
• The rise of more democratic forms of parent-child relationships means that children are having an even greater interest and input in decision making. New forms of digital communication will represent a key medium through which these decisions are made. For example, parents may already be encouraging the purchase and use of mobile phones by their children at a young age to the extent that they allow them greater control and monitoring of the children’s activities and whereabouts. They may allow parents to act as “virtual chaperones”, monitoring activity and safety within an increasingly “risky” environment. On one hand they imply more equal partnerships. On the other, the control and monitoring of children’s behaviours may be extended, beyond the physical, at the virtual level.

5.   Uncertainties  in the Challenge area of  Generations and the Life Course.

Inevitably, visions of possible futures will draw selectively from the range of evidence available. Any predictions around the particular direction that families will take are questionable to the extent that they overlook the scope for diversity. Furthermore, the degree to which current trends represent sharp qualitative breaks with the past is highly questionable. In focusing primarily upon change, we risk overlooking significant consistencies and continuities that would be equally important in understanding how families in the future will unfold.  However many questions remain;

• How will the different trends interact? While there is more scope for ethnic diversity within families, the cultural effects are not certain. It is not certain, for example, to what extent immigrant groups will become assimilated and acculturation will take effect so that the values, the culture and the customs merge with the majority population with time. Conversely, some communities might retain a strong heritage cultural identity. There may be further tensions in retaining identity if family members are dispersed geographically because of economic demand and globalisation. How will family members continue to balance conflicting demands and will families remain as coherent cohesive units? We do not know whether grandparents will continue to have the time for childcare and that special bond and, for that matter, whether grandfathers rather than grandmothers will have to play a greater role.

• Will the move to individualisation continue? Future generations of families may not continue to move towards “modern individualism”. This is especially the case with minority populations who may not continue to assimilate to the norms and values of the host society. As has been noted, close transnational links may actually be increasingly sustained by both the greater social mobility of young Caribbeans and South Asians in Britain, as well as by further developments in communication technology.

• Will families continue to be rooted in a local place? If these trends around the globalising of family relationships continue, then one would expect individuals and families to be less rooted around local place, and in relation to the communities in which we were born or grew up. They will involve the maintenance of ties across greater distances between Britain, Europe and the world.

• What will be the impact of globalisation? There has also been a parallel rise in importance of the local, the increase in ethnic group solidarity and different forms of project identity which emphasises active family and community togetherness, not free floating individualism. In this sense, physical contact may become even more rather than less salient in the form of family gatherings, celebrations and the passing on of traditions and rituals. The global fascination with genealogy and family trees may stem from the need for self-understanding and belonging in a globalising world where identities can become easily blurred and where choices seem overwhelming.

• Will there be a decline in the importance of family? That family responsibilities based on ascribed traditional norms of responsibility can no longer be assumed is only one side of the story. What all the research evidence shows is the considerable hard work, time and effort people put into maintaining their connections to other family members across boundaries and differences and who may live in other countries. Rather than changes driving people apart, making the family more fragile and people more self-focused, we see people continuing to invest considerable energy and value into their personal relationships. As the boundaries of family life become more complicated, we see a greater emphasis upon the communication and “display” (Finch 2007) of ‘familyness’, as the means by which families are established. We also see more attempts to seek out family histories through genealogical software and historical societies, and an interest in resemblances and heritability (Mason 2008).

• Will mainstream changes in British society also impact upon minority families? Is their influence more or less similar or different to that identified within majority families? Currently those families headed by a person of non-white ethnic background are much more likely than white families to have children living with them. Nearly 80% of Bangladeshi families had dependent children compared to just 40% of white families. Bangladeshi and Pakistani families tend to be larger than families of any other ethnic group. Mixed, Black Caribbean and White families with dependent children had the largest proportion of cohabiting couples, but cohabitation is less usual amongst Asian and Chinese populations. In turn, over 45% of Black Caribbean, Black African and mixed families were headed by a lone parent, compared with 25% of white families. According to the 4^th National Survey of Ethnic Minorities in Britain (Modood et al 1997, Berthoud 2005), only 39% of Caribbean adults under the age of 60 are in formal marriages compared to 60% of white adults under 60. Conversely, South Asians are characterised by higher rates of marriage with around three-quarters of Pakistani women in partnerships by the age of 25, compared with about two-thirds of Indian women and just about half of African-Asian and white women (Berthoud 2005).

• Will minority ethnic families follow the path of “individualisation” (rising patterns of cohabitation, divorce, less children, lone parenting) that is seen to be characterising white majority families? Berthoud (2005) for example posits a single scale running from “old fashioned values” to “modern individualism” as a way of interpreting ethnic variations with Pakistani’s and Bangladeshi’s at the traditionalistic end and Caribbean’s at the individualistic end and ahead of whites. Berthoud goes as far as to say that “the Caribbean family, in the traditional sense of a Caribbean man married to a Caribbean woman, may be dying out” (2005:249). In contrast, South Asians remain strongly adhered to “old-fashioned values” with very few people cohabiting from an Asian ethnic background. This said, whilst South Asian adults are less likely to be living outside marriage, there is and has been a good number of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis living alone temporarily due to migration processes which go unreported in surveys. For instance, men may be separated from their families by lengthy immigration procedures and in these cases women may become de facto lone parents for several years and, as a result, not in receipt of the support and benefits available to them.

• Will ethnic minority families continue to differ in relation to norms of responsibility towards older family members? Currently among some of Britain’s Asian population in particular, greater priority is given to parental ties in adulthood than to partner and children.  There is much more sharing of the home across three generations, often in the form of common housekeeping. Multigenerational ties, both within and beyond households, have particular resonance amongst south Asian families, and to an extend Chinese families, in which couples continue to live with their parents after starting their own families. For example, around two-thirds of British resident Indian elders live with one of their adult children, compared with just 15 % of white elders (Berthoud 2005). However young Asian families tend to live more often with the father’s rather than the mother’s family, meaning that, unlike the dominance of maternal grandparents commonly observed amongst whites, it is the widowed paternal grandmother who is most likely to live with the family.

• How will technology affect family relationships? While we know that technology will form an increasingly important role in how family members communicate, there remain uncertainties as to the extent of this change, how it will affect the nature of relations and the meanings people ascribe to family life. How will potential technological developments by Google around live satellite pictures at street level shape this? How are new forms of communication shaping the democratic openness of how monitoring and supervision works in families?

• What role will technology play in how people form relationships? Do they produce necessarily more fragile relationships? Will they enable people to sustain relationships that would otherwise breakdown and end? Families are creating a ‘networked’ sense connectedness, for example, by making and sending videotapes and emailing distant relatives, family histories recorded and distributed across the globe. These are already occurring, but we see them happening on a much grander scale, leading to more fundamental shifts in what being intimate and being close means.

• How will work patterns affect what goes on within families? Apart from the possibility of a longer active life having career implications, the demands of the labour market in response to shortages of particular skills will mean that patterns in work, training and education will change when viewed from a life-long perspective. The blurring of boundaries between living, working and learning currently experienced may continue to progress; particularly as new technologies and mobile communications and global business practices can keep people electronically connected at all times of the day and night regardless of whether they are at a place of work, home, or on holiday (Harrison, 2008). Perhaps the biggest challenge to families in relation to this context is managing the balance between work and leisure – or, indeed, a new order of family life. Although flexible working patterns could assist this process there is also the possibility that the more traditional opportunities for family and intergenerational interaction, such as in the evenings and at weekends, may disappear.

• How will developments in flexible working conditions impact upon family life? On one hand, they may provide people with choices in order to resolve work and family conflicts, allowing more and more people to work from home and in locations that allow them to combine responsibilities. On the other hand, they may encourage employers to put even more pressure on workers to work further away and spend more time away from home. These developments will undoubtedly impact upon domestic gender divisions and decision making processes within the family. Time pressures can lead to stress for working parents and how people negotiate work and family roles becomes an increasingly important issue.

6.   The potential future challenges or opportunities these trends and factors might present for education.

The ‘knowledge society’ produces new knowledge at ever-increasing rates, within ever-shorter periods of time. As a consequence, previous knowledge is getting outdated and is devalued at a rapid pace. Skills and knowledge have to be refreshed every couple of years. Professional qualifications obtained two or three decades ago do no longer guarantee a job. Increasing global competition adds to uncertainties about future career prospects. The emergence of these new risks demands new solutions.

The best coping strategy to survive in this uncertain social environment is life-long learning. Life-long learning is required to continuously adapt one’s skills and abilities to a rapidly changing environment. Life-long learning also helps to adapt to changing labour market demands, which may make certain qualifications obsolete and offer opportunities for others.

Therefore, early education in the parental home as well as in nurseries and pre-school facilities lays the foundation for future success or failure. Failure to acquire basic educational skills, including learning how to learn, will result in reduced life chances, and ultimately deprivation and social exclusion throughout the life course. A forward looking educational policy should therefore invest maximum effort at the early stages of life to equip everybody with the tools for life-long learning. Furthermore, people who did not get this opportunity during their school years need to be offered specific training for acquiring these skills. This is precondition for realising the full benefit of life-long learning as an adaptation strategy throughout the life course. Educational investments in the early years of life will reap the highest returns throughout the life course, eventually also working to the benefit of older people.

The internet is an example that shows how new technologies can be used to the benefit of older adults, if they are educated and trained in using it. The internet has the potential to smooth the transition into older adulthood, and much more so than the invention of the telephone, since it “…allows expanded opportunities for communication, accessing information and resources, and performing routine activities such as shopping.” (Czaja and Lee 2007: 241) The internet can help to mitigate social isolation – particularly for people from isolated rural areas and with transport issues – by making communication with friends and family easier, as well as engaging with internet communities. A recent European study shows that grandparents are partly using the internet for keeping in touch with their grandchildren – but only if they live a long distance away (Quadrello et al. 2005).

Moreover, the internet can enhance educational and employment opportunities for older workers by enabling them to access work-related information without physically being in the workplace, thus offering new options of working from home. The internet gives easy access to health care information, and to infrastructure (e.g. banking, shopping, or libraries) not easily accessible otherwise, which would particularly benefit people living in remote areas or suffering from physical impairments. In short, educating older people to use the internet carries all the hallmarks of ’successful ageing’, in particular in rural areas.

6.1 Intergenerational Learning

Another form of learning – intergenerational learning – can become part of the answer as well. Until today, most intergenerational learning still takes place within the family, where thanks to ever rising life expectancies grandparents and grandchildren can engage in leisure activities very different from the past. What is new, however, is the idea that intergenerational learning works in both directions (Luescher and Liegle 2003). Not only do parents and grandparents educate their children and grandchildren – children teach their parents and grandparents too. Common examples refer to the use of internet and computer technology, mobile phones and how to write text messages, how to download music from the internet and to transfer it to a MP3 player, etc. But the exchange of skills and knowledge goes well beyond such everyday examples. Grandparents were identified as guardians of family history (Reitzes and Mutran 2004) who pass on this knowledge to the younger generations. Grandchildren, on the other hand, share their view of the world with the older generations, thereby helping grandparents and parents to keep up with new developments in our rapidly changing societies.

The emergence of new family forms and increasing numbers of single and childless households have resulted in public concern about the future of intergenerational relations. Intergenerational projects run by voluntary sector organisations can play an important role in educating older people in using the internet/computer technology. As examples from all across Europe show, young people are only too often happy to volunteer teaching older adults these skills (examples of such projects can be found in Hoff 2008).

Life-long learning has become the key to continuous adaptation of people of all ages to ever-changing demands in the labour market. Precondition for success are specific skills – the skills of learning how to learn. It is one of the main challenges of our dynamic knowledge societies to transfer such skills to older and younger workers alike to avoid the persistence of old or the emergence of new social inequalities. Intergenerational learning can make a significant contribution to the transfer of such skills – in families, in the voluntary sector and in formal education. What is needed in future is intergenerational co-operation rather than intergenerational conflict. In the workplace, age-integrated work teams of older and younger employees working together appear to be best suited to provide the required mix of skills and knowledge (Boersch-Supan et al. 2005).

Intergenerational learning is also an essential precondition for the preservation of local knowledge, such as local history or rare craft skills (Hoff 2007). Such local knowledge can be re-vitalised and used to a local community’s advantage, for example, by creating tourist attractions. But it also helps scientists to better understand the evolution of domestic animals or technologies – to mention only a few examples. In some cases, this can lead to new employment opportunities. Yet the relationship between local, traditional, lay, and expert knowledge is a very complex and dynamic process, as the local knowledge is embedded in the local context.

In short, education policy will have to be adjusted catering for the needs of an ageing society. This implies a change in the ways of teaching for all generations, not just for the older ones. Learning how to learn would enable individuals to help themselves throughout their lives, thus reducing reliance on state support and public expenditure.

Additionally, teaching curricula for students of all ages will have to be changed in the light of the current transformation of Britain into an ageing society. Among many other things, this could include information on older people’s specific needs, the benefits of intergenerational interaction, the reconciliation of employment and care for older as well as for younger family members. Education in an ageing society would also mean making sure that professionals working with older people are appropriately trained in using state-of-the-art technologies like the ones described above. Likewise, people working in care for many years already should be offered the chance to update their knowledge and skills on a more frequent basis than commonly practice. In the long run that could – and ought to – result in caring becoming a more highly-qualified occupation.

Intergenerational learning, the intergenerational exchange of knowledge and skills, as well as adjusting school and training curricula to the needs of an ageing society can become a vital adaptation strategy for young and old in the knowledge society. A mix of experience and openness toward new developments is most likely to generate this adaptability. The young, the middle-aged and the older improve their employment prospects by learning from each other and by teaching each other, thus sharing their specific strengths. This intergenerational exchange influences the employment chances/choices and the working capacity of all generations, individually and at the workplace, and thus the potential of our societies for generating economic growth.

6.2 The family and intergenerational learning

The family can be a hub of mutual support, influence and learning in a multitude of ways. Although some of these may be systematic and intentional, much of what may influence each family member can be informal and incidental. Shared values, expectations, aspirations, knowledge, beliefs, skills, behaviours and the language we use develop around the variety of domestic activities that family members engage in. These activities can range from playing together and talking to each other about each other to more specific pursuits such as sport, gardening, reading, shopping and watching TV. We are also living at a time where new information and communication technologies are finding their way into homes and lives at many different levels.

In one sense it is easy to characterise the role that older family members can play in handing down knowledge and wisdom as if these are fixed entities that can be passed down through generations. While certain skills and knowledge may be passed from one generation to the next, other things are continually changing. Not only are we living at a time of rapid scientific and technological development but we are also living at a time of rapid social and cultural change. In turn the demands made by society change in relation to these and what is valued and seen as relevant can influence how each individual develops.

The phrase ‘intergenerational transfer of learning’ carries with it the idea that learning results from something that is transferred from one generation to another or, at least, a series of such acquisitions. Taken on its own this, of course, reduces learning to a quantitative increase in knowledge or procedures familiar to behaviourists; a one-way transaction thereby ignoring the agency of the learner. Constructivist or socio-cultural approaches are well known in that they allow for learners acting on what they receive in their own way; building modifying and often discarding earlier mental structures so that learning can also become a way of seeing and understanding things differently; a qualitative change (e.g., Fosnot, 1996;  Wertsch and Tulviste, 1996). Acknowledging this creative potential in the learner not only transforms the idea of learning and what can go on amongst family members but also what society contributes to families as well as what families can contribute to society.

Family members respond to each other; each in their own unique way. In view of this there is a contribution that all family members, regardless of their generation, can make towards each other’s development as well as to the family as a whole. Even if a more experienced other plays a scaffolding role (Vygotsky, 1978) so that with this assistance a task can be carried out by a learner that would otherwise not be attempted successfully alone there is still scope for mutually helpful collaboration. This is, for example, inherent in Rogoff’s (1990) use of the term ‘guided participation’ which suggests a more active role played by children so they can collaborate with, as well as be guided by others. Intra-generationally, research carried out amongst siblings by Gregory (2001) suggests an evenly balanced interplay or ’synergy’ where understandings can be developed mutually rather than primarily in one direction. If the idea of transfer is to be considered more generally in the family setting then, firstly, its scope as a multi-way intergenerational phenomenon should be taken into account and, moreover, its relationship to learning considered in relation to a creative interplay or synergy.

The scope for intergenerational exchange and support between families can be seen to be compromised for children with lone or working parents, migration and economic relocation. In view of this there have been developments in provision aimed at purposeful extrafamilial support that do not rely on the family. Newman and Hatton-Yeo (2008), for example, characterise these in terms of either educating the young or being concerned with the welfare of older adults. In particular they focus on the teaching and learning roles that can be played by bringing together the different age-groups. The perceived benefits of this enterprise include shared learning positive attitudes among generations and social cohesion (ibid.). The underlying theory is drawn from Erikson’s (1963) idea that parallel developmental needs of young and old result in a special kind of synergy between these generations. In view of this participants in intergenerational programs are usually populated by those who are younger and older while missing out a middle generation. The idea that a generational synergy can be developed outside the family setting is, of course, fundamental to such programs.

Dissatisfaction with the idea of learning as acquisition has been expressed by Hodkinson and his co-workers (Hodkinson, 2005; Hodkinson et al, 2007) who see this as separating the learner from the process of learning and what is learned. In particular, they argue that ‘the processes and products of learning are deeply intertwined, and neither can be understood without considering the positions, dispositions, and identities of [the] learner’ (Hodkinson et al, 2007: 14) with no clear separation between learning and identity. For some people, each is part of the other with learning not just about becoming but also about being. A more recent characterisation of this has been cited by Plumb (2008) in the phrase ‘learning as dwelling’. Here it is also argued that learning is not about the intake of external knowledge into the mind of an isolated individual but a ‘process through which learners forever weave themselves into the fabric of their natural, social and cultural worlds’ (ibid.: 62).

A view of learning occurring as part of practice and the social interactions that take place in the associated settings has been developed by Lave and Wenger (1991). They argue a distinction between the approach to academic learning taken in schools or other education institutions and learning that occurs more naturally as part of day to day social activity. Academic approaches towards learning focus on representations of the world that have been abstracted from the real life setting where they would normally occur. These representations can then be manipulated theoretically and can be helpful in developing explanations and predictions about the world. As McCormick (1997) has noted, knowledge derived in this way is applicable more generally to a variety of situations whereas practical knowledge is limited to particular situations. While academic approaches can focus on more conscious systematic forms of teaching, by way of contrast learning may arise within the practice occurring in an everyday setting (Lave, 1989). In this way learners engage less formally from their own perspective rather than from an external perspective that might otherwise characterise a teaching curriculum. In this way learning is situated within rather than isolated from the practical setting and the social relations that form part of this (Lave and Wenger, 1991).

Learning also occurs within a community comprised of participants who make a range of contributions. A key point is that the contributions can be at different levels depending on those who happen to be participating in an activity where understandings and purposes are shared. Lave and Wenger (1991) use the term ‘community of practice’ in relation to individuals who participate in a common purpose and share understandings about their actions in relation to this.

The family can be likened to a community of practice in the sense that there is mutual support with members playing complementary roles in the practice of day to day living without any external systematic learning agenda. Even with children growing up as part of a family in business their early experiences of the social practice within the family and the knowledge and skills associated within this are inextricably linked (Hamilton, 2006). On some occasions what is shared and learnt can be more systematic and focused while in many other respects learning can be incidental and informal.

Families are not formal learning institutions and although they are populated in part by adults the learning space can be very different from the more uniform and target-driven demands that have to be managed within the confines of a learning initiative. If intergenerational programs and extrafamilial paradigms (Newman and Hatton-Yeo, 2008) are being implemented in response to a perceived deficit in some children’s lives then a key challenge for the future is to preserve some of those qualities of the family learning space and the associated diversity.

In contrast to parents who are working and busy with a variety of day to day responsibilities, grandparents can spend more time with their grandchildren and develop a special bond (Weissvourd, 1998). Children and their grandparents each have their own vulnerabilities and are able to offer mutual support for each other. There is scope for a more relaxed and hands-on relationship when engaging in activities (Jessel et al., 2004). The home setting, can offer scope for a more evenly balanced learning relationship, or ’synergy’ (Gregory, 2001) than might occur in more formal educational contexts. In particular, synergistic learning relationships may occur between children and their grandparents. This may give scope for reciprocal social relationships and joint interaction in learning and contrasts with the role of the teacher as controller rather than as learning partner (Bruner, 1985). In the context of the family, mutual trust and respect for each member’s perspective (Rommetveit, 1974, 1979) is important to this process. The value given to an activity within a culture in which learners identify can also influence learning interactions (Goodnow, 1990).

Families can play a key role in the development of literacy. A parent reading books to children is an everyday part of life in many families. Although this can involve both mothers and fathers, it has been found that mothers tend to do this more (Nichols 2000; Connie and Sharen, 2004). Grandparents also make important contributions to their grandchildren’s education (Strom and Strom, 1995) and with regard to literacy performance, grandparents’ reading skills and practices are reflected across generations (Parsons and Bynner, 2006). This was also evident from the work carried out by Kenner et al, (2005). A further focus on the story-reading within Bangladeshi families revealed how the multiple worlds inhabited by a grandchild during story-reading were transformed ’syncretically’ on a number of levels (Gregory et al, 2007). The idea of syncretism as a creative process where people reinvent culture, drawing on familiar and new resources is argued to be of central importance in that it allows for cultures to develop rather than remain frozen. This was evident within the books that were used, such as through the pictorial illustrations, as well as linguistically in the story reading (ibid.).

6.3 Ethnicity and Intergenerational learning

The increasing amounts of time children spend with their grandparents raises direct questions about education and its relationship to intergenerational learning that takes place within families as well as in schools (see also Gregory et al 2007, Kenner et al 2007). The role of grandparents can often alleviate the time pressures faced by working parents, and in certain situations may substitute parents’ time investments in promoting children’s education. While intergenerational transfers of time, care and money tend to work downward – from grandparents to grandchildren – the nature of intergenerational learning is a reciprocal one. There has been anecdotal evidence for some time regarding how children teach their grandparents to use computers, internet and other technological developments.

We know that the family provide opportunities for frequent interaction between young and old, and this has become an important aspect within debates about age segmentation and segregation. A key area is to consider is the role of schools in fostering this. Evidence from intergenerational programmes also suggests that schools need to be more aware of the opportunities available for mutual learning between children and older people, and the wider societal benefits this provides. Changing attitudes towards older people, including grandparents, need to be recognised within educational and learning paradigms – not as conveyors of out-dated traditional forms of knowledge but as agents with skills and knowledge that compliment children’s formal education.

Intergenerational learning also has particular implications for minority ethnic families and citizenship. Previous conventional understandings of citizenship had assumed that acculturation of minorities to the host society values was an inevitable process. The orientations of 2^nd and 3^rd generation migrants would be firmly orientated to the host society as opposed to the country of origin. Most of the UK research evidence has shown this to not be the case. The mutual learning that occurs between grandchildren and grandparents can also act to promote citizenship amongst older people. The current government has initiated a number of policies aimed at citizenship education and the better integration of new citizens to the UK.

Schools represent the key domain through which the state is able to actively foster national values to its citizenry. Yet as patterns of migration change, for example, people migrating during middle and later life, then citizenship education needs to be broadened, in order to form part of lifelong learning. To what extend will previous migrants, such as those who came during the 1950s and 1960s act as role models for more recent migrants of a similar age group? The adaptation of new migrants also requires a much broader notion of citizenship education – not simply with regard to civic values, democracy and Britishness – but less abstract forms of knowledge which impact directly upon their mobility – e.g. qualifications, labour market issues, entitlements and service provision, and issues to do with intercultural communication.

Globalisation has extended and intensified the flows of migration between societies and this has been met with concerns over the integration and needs of the new and diverse migrants. A good deal of their societal adaptation can be learned from previous and existing migrants, thus there needs to be spaces for mutual learning within civil society, for example, through community and adult education centres.

6.4 The role of new technologies

Although the parts taken by human beings as key players in family life have been outlined, there is another element that is finding its way into people’s relationships: new information and communication technologies (ICTs). If we regard these solely in terms of such functions as storing and retrieving information and communication to others then they may not appear to be so new. However, what marks out the present day developments in this field are their portability and accessibility and affordability

New technologies and family communication: The number of older as well as younger people using mobile phones and the internet to communicate has increased in recent years (Haddon, 2004; Age Concern, 2002; Mobile Data Association, 2005). Attitudes amongst elderly towards internet use have been found to vary from the ‘users’ who were open to learning something new regardless of their age and ‘non-users’ who did regard age as an obstacle (Blit-Cohen and Litwin, 2004). Health factors such as deteriorating eyesight also marked out users from non-users. Active social communication was found to take place over the internet. The extent to which people own and use technology also has a bearing on the availability of social support. From their European study Mante-Meijer et al. (2001) found that in countries where the technologies have penetrated less there was greater reliance on settings where the relevant skills could be learnt formally. Informal learning, more evident in high-penetration countries, was found to take place in a variety of contexts such as within families and between work colleagues. Although Selwyn (2004) has found that the extent to which children influence their parents’ take-up of computers was slight, children were able to play a more active part in this with their grandparents. The situation has, of course, been rapidly changing over the last few years as new technology has penetrated and proliferated. More recently, Gatto and Tak (2008) have reported increasing use by older adults of computers for communication as well as entertainment and access to information.

New technologies and family learning: Based on a survey of the views of parents of children from 3 to 5 years of age attending nurseries in Scotland, McPake et al. (2005) have identified three types of competence developed through the use of ICT: technical (basic operational skills), cultural (understanding of the social roles that ICT plays) and learning. The latter, seen to be of particular significance to young children, refers to their ability to use ICT for social and cultural purposes, including communication, self-expression and entertainment as well as their work. ICT was used in the home to support early literacy and numeracy, communication and musical skills, as well as in helping children learn how to learn. Importantly, the degree of competence children had acquired appeared to depend on such factors as access to equipment, support in learning to use it, and the particular interests and aptitudes of older family members. The authenticity seen to be afforded by technological activities can aid learning (Murphy and Hennessy, 2001). This has been followed up in the family context by Jane and Robbins (2004) who have also reported on the potential benefit of such activities to grandparents in that it allows them to revisit and explore technology in a new and fresh way as a result of interacting with their grandchildren. Kenner et al. (2008) noted the role of the computer as mediating artefact (Crook, 2001) and participant in learning activities with grandparents and grandchildren. In this context, however, the importance of the role of the grandparent in structuring the approach to the activities was also noted (Kenner et al, 2008).

The implications arising from the possible blurring in chronological divisions of education (Harper, 2008) for intergenerational learning are widespread. Segmentation of education may be less distinct. For example, the role of the university could become a more continuous one where people remain connected as part of a life long learning community. With regard to children’s learning and development, another challenge is for teachers to know more about the learning that goes on within families so that they can learn from this as well as allow their own institutional approaches (which will be different) to interface in a sensitive way. This is still an under-researched area. While studies such as the Teaching and Learning Research Programme’s Learning Lives (Hodkinson et al., 2008) have begun to contribute to the literature on the kind of learning going on throughout people’s lives both formally and informally, further attention will still be needed in understanding the different kinds of learning, cultural practices and development taking place in a variety of out-of-school settings including the family.

Older people, of course, are not fixed entities. The older people of 2050 will have been the younger people of today who will have taken with them not only the practices we associate with young people today but also some of the attitudes to change and flexibility that we may consider a hallmark of our time. Assuming the infants of today will be the elders of the future then, to survive as a responsive and flexible community in a changing world, what they will take with them into that future will not just be the transferred remnants of yesterday but also the ability to play their part in creating the culture of tomorrow.

6.5 A new education agenda

Ageing societies require the transfer of educational resources between young and old. There is a concern that in using national resources for education and training for older people, we may  penalize the young. However there are demographic and societal reasons for such a transfer in resources. As the UK, like the rest of Western Europe moves to over half its population aged over 50 by 2030, so there will be a general transfer of resources from younger to older populations, these will include health, education, housing, employment etc. This will be matched by changing societal needs, as individuals adjust both to the reality of longer lives, and to the fluid life courses which are emerging at the same time.

• Life long education of adults will move to the fore alongside early learners, and the division of education along chronological age lines will blur.
• Education is likely to be a mix of formal group teaching (akin to current early learning in schools and universities), self-promoted learning using information and media technology, community learning, work-place learning and skills development.
• It is likely to be pluralistically funded by individuals, communities, employers, governments, private enterprise.
• The separation of education to enable personal development, to enhance employability and career progression, to develop skills, and to successfully contribute to wider society is likely to disappear.
• Education is likely to continue throughout the life course enabling individuals to draw on a portfolio of options to personal development.
• The role of “qualifications” will need to be re-examined.

The new demography and new social forces are likely to result in life long education of adults to the fore along side formative learners. In particular the division of education along chronological age lines will blur. While there will always be a demand for formative education, it is now recognised that the education of adults, including older adults, is both intrinsically important and important for society as whole. Education gives people the chance to face the rapid changes in the society, in the labour market (particularly through skills upgrading) and in their personal and community life. It enables them to participate in complex democratic societies on all levels, and gives the society a chance to pursue its social and economic development supported by socially integrated adults of all ages. UK policy on education has been developed in the context of a traditional pyramidal population structure, and linear life courses, which result in a large investment by the individual in early year’s formal education, and a rapid decrease in such education in young adulthood. The population ageing identified above, resulting in mature societies and elongated active lives for a growing number of the population, leads to the challenge of devising education for the new demography – both individual and societal. A new framework is required to cope with the following issues:

There appears a clear distinction between formative and foundation education.

• formative education
• education as a lifestyle-choice
• education to enhance employment prospects
• education to enable full citizenship
• education as a  public health initiative

The Challenge team proposed that as the demands for education across the life course grow, so foundation education will be available not only during formative education, but also as a component of other types of education which might be taken at varying times.

Formative education: there will still be a requirement for structured formative education, but increasingly here there will be a  mix of  “teaching” and “group learning” with self-promoted  learning using information and media technology even for the very young. The relationship between state and private structures for determining access to social and economic capital will remain blurred. Inequalities drawn along new lines – gender, cohort, generation, age, race, ability, health, capacity – may arise, or be removed. At one end of the socio-economic spectrum we may see the rise of the buyer as parental purchaser power comes to the fore and families with high economic and social capital increasingly buy out a new education agenda. At the other end of the spectrum, poverty and social inequality may increase for those groups unable to access such capital, or new technologies may eradicate the social inequalities we see today. Changing ethnic and cultural norms will increasingly influence society with implications for the status of formal and family based types of learning.

Education as a lifestyle choice: new technology enables the blurring of leisure and education, education becomes a lifestyle choice enabling mental enhancement and enjoyment. As the relationship between mental capacity and physical health becomes clearer, so education will form a growing element of personal enhancement. Research indicates that mental development, brain capacity, and longevity are closely associated, so education contributes to active health life. Life long learning and adult education cannot be developed within standard models of delivery but requires more flexible approaches. Older adults are more diverse than younger adults. Alongside standard variables of gender, class, ethnicity etc, older people have accumulated a variety of other biological, psychological, historical and social attributes which are unique to their personal life histories. This will structure the resources they have access to (social, biological, cultural, mental and economic) and the frameworks within which they make decisions. The UK government policy has tended to think of demographic ageing  as leading to large numbers of old people, rather than large numbers of people who are simply living longer. Many of them with increasingly active, healthy lives. Conceptualised in this way, mature societies provide the opportunity for the first time for multi-generations to live and work alongside each other, contributing their own experiences and expertise. As people age throughout their lives they accumulate a wealth of experience, knowledge, skills, memories, wisdom and creativity. Life long education opportunities provide for this wealth to be distributed throughout our society. Within this frame, education across the life course may become a social responsibility, either through enlightenment, or through evidence that   life long learning is having significant health and well being effects.

Education to enhance employment prospects: Our traditional thinking of skills upgrading and employment will change. As new cohorts enter the workplace, they will increasingly be accustomed to regular/continual skills upgrading to keep pace with technological developments and demands. This form of education will become an essential requirement of the modern workplace, and its provision needs to be negotiated between employers, governments and individuals. Employment related education of the future will increasingly focus on language, life skills, and the global arena, to enable full mobility of highly skilled individuals in an increasingly open international labour market. Clearly the world economy will influence the demand for skilled and unskilled international labour and this will impact on the willingness of the  state and the individual to purchase such training. One impact may be that that the expansion of global economic activity will increase the demand for educated labour, this will lead to greater upward social mobility for working class students via education but those with lower educational qualifications will need to re-educate and re-train for more cognitively demanding work Alternatively given a downfall in global employment, the middle class will then come under increasing pressure as professional jobs are off shored, and we may find the skills divide is not between the middle and working class, but cuts through the middle class itself.

However, regardless of these two contrasting futures, Europe is now moving into a period of redefining late life work as governments, employers and workers begin to come to terms with the implications of demographic ageing and the far reaching implications this will have for institutions and  individuals alike. There are now growing moves to recruit, retain and retrain that generation of men and women in their 50s and 60s who are increasingly being seen as essential to retaining Europe’s economic competitiveness as the upcoming skills shortage washes across the region.

While some argue that the requirement for new skills, particularly abilities in information and communication technologies, increasingly excludes older workers, it is also clear that technological innovation and flexible working patterns will increase opportunities for older workers. Indeed, the inherent training component of new technological labour means that future cohorts of older workers will have experience of continual training and skills updating throughout their lives. Supplemented by vocational and life long learning, adult education and training, this will significantly enhance the employability of older people and address upcoming national skills shortages. It is important that such education and training is targeted, builds on previous experiences and skills and is properly evaluated. It is important to engage the business community in this, and to do this, far more research and evaluation of the effectiveness of different types of life-long learning and training is required from a business stance. There is likely to be a move from classroom training in workplace and already rapid growth in ‘desk-top’ training for all employees using CD-ROM, videoconferencing, the internet and electronic performance support. Also we will see a shift from trainer led training to employer led training with trainers as “enablers”. Work related education shifting to create interventions that allow employees to decide what to learn and when to learn it, employing user-driven technology: multimedia training, training technology and performance support systems. There is already growing use of technology to provide training and (technology-based training) and  to support workers’ performance on the job through electronic performance support systems (technology-based support) – it is likely that both will play an increasing role, not just in the workplace but across all educational activities. In addition a wide range of technology now provides both technology-based training and technology-based support: computer software, CD-ROMs, videoconferencing, computer networks, multimedia training  technology and performance support systems. The trainer’s role is changing – trainers need to become supporters and enablers, particularly when dealing with an older, experienced workforce. There will also be a growing role for Human Resources to move to employee-dialogue approach, whereby employee is positively encouraged to identify training and skills updating needs.

Education to enable full citizenship: This will be required to enable people to cope with complexity of life, to plan their lives, and to care for others. Modern complex democratic societies will not be able to function without well education individuals at their centres. New inequalities will arise between those who are educated into modern living, and those who do not have the skills, knowledge or capacity to cope with these new demands and ways of interacting, contributing and behaving. There are current concerns over the role of migration and immigration and the special needs of new migrants: in particular there is current acceptance that people from different cultures may have very different expectations of what learning is from the traditional British experience. Education currently can play a key role in the arrival and integration of new migrants, employability, recognition and updating of qualifications, cultural and social adjustment, social integration and cohesion. However, given the likely tremendous increase in international migration for all, it is likely that many of these challenges will have disappeared and or changed by 2030 as we move into a mobile more culturally integrated world.  It is likely that individual preferences and experiences will dominate the learning experience, need and demand, as with other groups.

Education as a public health initiative: It is now widely accepted that keeping the mind active is as important to health and well being as physical activity. The role that education may play in keeping down national health costs, especially in older age groups, will increasingly come to the fore. Mental capacity does not necessarily decline with age, and almost certainly not until late old age for most adults. Research suggests that fluid intelligence (ability to carry out higher level cognitive functions) may decline from the mid-60s, though not at a standard rate, and possibly due to lack of use; while crystallized intelligence (acquisition of new skills though education) continues to grow throughout adulthood.  Indeed, it may be that reduced mental activity  among current older adults – in part due to lack of new mental opportunities and activities, and lack of focused training and educational opportunities -  actually contributes to apparent decline in mental capacity. Indeed few physical capacity changes are directly related to age. Most are heavily influenced by environment and lifestyle. Those that are age related, such as sensory change, can be adapted for through aids (declining eyesight and glasses etc); others though a change in the physical environment. There is thus little which does deter an individual taking part in and benefiting from educational  activities throughout their lives. And an implication would be that, if we want an active older population, we need to encourage such participation?

The role of digital and bio technologies: These will be significant. New technologies are already playing an important role in educating a diverse range of employees in the corporate world. These need to be considered as tools for enabling education across the life course for all in the community and home as well as the workplace. Technology and training delivery include electronic on line training with on-line certification; videoconferencing allowing simultaneous video and audio interaction between multiple participants across the globe; CD-ROMs  providing interactive video and audio capabilities, easily used by all ages, and which enhance learning and retention; local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or “Intranet” learning. Technology to enhance learning include electronic performance support systems (EPSS). These are electronic tools that enable individuals to access support, coaching or information to perform better. These systems have considerable potential in for other education activities. EPSS are being seen as making significant impact on productivity, performance and employee learning in the world of work. This area is likely to develop rapidly over the next few decades with real potential for education.

There are several broad aspects of children’s relations with technology that are likely to become increasingly significant in the coming years. These include the convergence of technologies and forms of communication; the ability to ‘multitask’, or engage flexibly with a diverse range of media; the individualisation of access to media; the potential for communication and participation in creative media production; the changing role of media in identity formation; the difficulty in establishing the credibility of online information; the growing influence of commercial forces.

7.   Summary of evidence to support the identified factors, trends and uncertainties

Howse’s review on Longevity sets the demographic scene for this challenge. As he points out forecasts of future life expectancy have been revised upwards both in the medium term and in the longer term. Over the next twenty years female life expectancy at age 65 is forecast to grow even more quickly than it has done over the last 20 years (3.4 yrs as against 2.6); and there will be only a slight dip in the rate of increase for men over the same period (3.6 years as against 4 years). However, he warns that it would be complacent to discount altogether the risk of a pessimistic scenario in which life expectancy actually starts to fall as younger (and more obese) cohorts start reaching later life, say from 2030 onwards.  Two key factors to consider are the gender gap in life expectancy, and the socioeconomic disparities in life expectancy.  The worst-case scenario is that the relative difference in mortality rates between high and low socioeconomic groups will continue to increase. Of similar importance is to consider the issue of healthy later life or of frail later life, as this will impact upon demand and need for late life education.

• a no change scenario which assumes that the age-specific prevalence of disabling chronic disease will remain unchanged.
• a poorer health scenario assumes that  current trends in obesity will continue (which means an increase in prevalence of about 2% per annum). This problem will be compounded by the ageing of large ethnic minority populations, which will add to the prevalence of CHD and stroke.  Preventive strategies will only partially offset these trends.
• an improving health scenario, which is not that different from the fully engaged scenario for life expectancy. There will be a decline in smoking prevalence and obesity as individuals take their own health more seriously. Health services will be responsive to demand with high rates of technology uptake for disease prevention and excellent rates of diffusion of treatment. Mortality will decline quickly.

Howse concludes by combining these factors into 2 possible scenarios which could frame the demand for late life education.

• The pessimistic scenario assumes that the increasing prevalence of obesity in cohorts that are still relatively young or in middle age will have a very substantial impact on their mortality in later life, large enough in fact to reverse the long-term trend in life expectancy.
• At the other extreme there is what we might call a super-optimistic scenario, which reckons on our ability to develop and apply the means of overcoming whatever limits the process of biological ageing puts to human longevity soon enough to have an impact on the evolution of human longevity in this century. Should this happen, then we should expect to see a rapid acceleration in gains in life expectancy, and there is no reason why the average age at death should not exceed the maximum observed human lifespan (approx. 125 years) before the end of the century.

At the other end of the life course spectrum, Lee addresses future changes to childhood. The first section of this paper describes the child-centred social investment thesis which has had a strong influence on UK government educational and child-related policy over the last decade. He notes that the resulting policies have involved the increasing integration of health, welfare and educational resources in the common purpose of increasing children’s social and cognitive capital. He then considers the guiding social, technical and economic assumptions currently made about the future need in the context of major global trends and signals. These include issues of demographic change in less and least developed world regions, climate change, energy and food security and financial conditions. He argues that despite an ageing of the population, childhood education remains critical as remedial interventions targeted at adults are unlikely to be effective unless these adults developed sufficient social and cognitive skills in childhood to make full use of them. Lee considers the future impact of climate change, resource allocation, market instability, and changing life course investment, concluding that childhood will remain “special” and a particularly wise site of investment in human potential for two reasons:

• The earlier the investment is made the longer dividends will be paid out
• The earlier the investment is made, bearing in mind that advantage accrues advantage, the greater compound interest effects will be

Burnett, Sebastian & Blakemore’s review on understanding the changing adolescent brain also highlights that adolescents are a distinct sector of society with specific needs. They show how recent brain imaging studies have demonstrated that the human brain continues to develop throughout the adolescent years.  Although there are differences between male and female teenagers in terms of the time course of neural development, similar brain areas undergo significant restructuring in both sexes. Research is currently exploring how the brain changes and how these changes might help to explain certain aspects of typically teenage behaviour, such as risk taking and emerging competence in interpersonal interactions. For example, research on decision-making and impulse control might influence questions of criminal responsibility and anti-social behaviour. These findings might contribute to improving the quality of education and pastoral care for this age group, and have implications for the way young people are seen in the eyes of the law and are treated by the medical profession. Future research might thus play a role in shaping educational and social policy, with a view to encouraging a more socially competent and responsible generation of teenagers.

Taking a different stance Michaels’ work on adolescence points out that the family remains crucial to adolescence transitions, and that increasing rates of family dissolution may particularly impact upon adolescents. However, the role of schools, communities and peers also play a key role in this stage of development.

Leeson considers the role of learning across the life course and how this will change in the light of different futures. He argues that we are seeing a combination of forces which are resulting in the ageing of some  life- transitions, with ageing societies displaying an increase of age at first marriage and at remarriage, at leaving the parental home, at first childbirth. While public and legal institutions may be lowering the age threshold into full legal adulthood, individuals themselves are choosing to delay many of those transitions which demonstrate a commitment to full adulthood – full economic independence from parents, formal adult union through marriage or committed long-term cohabitation and parenting. Leeson argues that this process is likely to continue with a blurring of chronological barriers to access to cultural capital including education. As individuals increasingly combine periods of economic and biological reproduction with rest, so learning for citizenship, social and self enhancement will become more commonplace. Following a review of current EU policy on life long learning, Leeson covers aspects of education for personal enhancement, employment, and citizenship, highlighting the ways in which these may evolve.

The impact of changing family structures both on investment in children and on individuals across the life course forms the key focus of the reviews by Mann, Hoff and Jessel. Both discuss white families and minority ethnic families. Mann lays emphasis on science and technology as a driving force behind aspects of family change. Developments in communication networks and information technology are already shaping family relations, not least amongst minoritised families dispersed by international migration. The rising availability (and affordability) of air travel, telecommunications and other new digital forms of communication are further encouraging the development of transnational ties on a global scale. This is occurring however, not just for those with a history of migration, but also amongst a wider range of families whose children, siblings, parents and/or grandparents are living and working for varying amounts of time abroad.

As both Hoff and Mann point out, one tangible impact of technology on family life is the shift in the work-home relationship afforded by these technologies. There remain several unanswered questions around how these developments in flexible working conditions will impact upon family life. On the one hand they may provide people with choices in order to resolve work and family conflicts, allowing more and more people work from home and in locations that allow them to combine responsibilities. On the other hand they may encourage employers to put even more pressure on workers to work further away and spend more time away from home. These developments will undoubtedly impact upon domestic gender divisions and decision making processes within the family. Time pressures can lead to stress for working parents and how people negotiate work and family roles becomes an increasingly important issue.

Mann also argues that the rise of more democratic forms of parent-child relationships means that children are having an even greater interest and input in decision making. New forms of digital communication will represent a key medium through which these decisions are made. On the one hand they imply more equal partnerships. On the other, the control and monitoring of children’s behaviours may be extended, beyond the physical, at the virtual level, for example, technological developments by Google around live satellite pictures at street level. Thus new forms of communication may affect the democratic openness of how monitoring and supervision occurs in families.

Jessel focuses his review on the actual delivery of education by the family. He points out an important distinction between the approach to academic learning taken in schools or other education institutions and the learning that occurs more naturally as part of day to day social activity. Jessel also considers in some detail the importance of new technology to both unite and distance families, and the possibility for the development of more complex relationships involving different generations. He points out that what we regard as a ‘virtual’ space today may take on a more tangible coherent and connected life of its own as we are able, through communication technologies, to maintain, sustain and develop relationships. The space in which we live and learn may no longer be defined by four walls and a roof. In this context the challenge for ‘family’ members may be one of identifying and contributing to a group identity, even if this identity is dynamic in nature.

He points out that with regard to children’s learning and development, the challenge will be to combine institutional and family based systems of learning, increasingly influenced by varying cultural practices. The older people of 2050 will have been the younger people of today who will have taken with them not only the practices we associate with young people today but also some of the attitudes to change and flexibility that we may consider a hallmark of our time. He agrees with Lee that formative education will remain crucial. Assuming the infants of today will be the elders of the future then, to survive as a responsive and flexible community in a changing world, what they will take with them into that future will not just be the transferred remnants of yesterday but also the ability to play their part in creating the culture of tomorrow.

Hoff’s review on families, care and work also highlights the importance of new technology and life long learning as an important mode of family adaptation to the changing demands being placed upon it.

• In addition he points out that faced with the prospect of a shrinking workforce, the British economy cannot afford to lose too many employees due to unemployment, early retirement or family care commitments if the UK is to maintain economic growth and to preserve existing levels of individual wealth.

As globalisation extends and intensifies the flows of migration between societies, concerns over the integration and needs of the new and diverse migrants will increase. Their societal adaptation can be learned from previous and existing migrants, thus there need to be spaces for mutual learning within civil society. Demivera, Mann, Leeson, Heath and Jessel all address the issue of ethnicity.  Intergenerational learning has particular implications for minority ethnic families and citizenship. Previous conventional understandings of citizenship had assumed that acculturation of minorities to the host society values was an inevitable process. The orientations of 2^nd and 3^rd generation migrants would be firmly orientated to the host society as opposed to the country of origin. Most of the UK research evidence has shown this to not be the case. The mutual learning that occurs between grandchildren and grandparents can also act to promote citizenship amongst older people. The current government, for example, has initiated a number of policies aimed at citizenship education and the better integration of new citizens to the UK. Schools represent the key domain through which the state is able to actively foster national values to its citizenry. Yet as patterns of migration change, with people migrating during middle and later life, then citizenship education needs to be broadened, in order to form part of lifelong learning. To what extent will previous migrants, such as those who came during the 1950s and 1960s act as role models for more recent migrants of a similar age group?

Heath provides an overview of current understanding of minority attainment in education. He suggests that at GCSEs Indians and Chinese tend to somewhat better than the majority, while students of Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage do somewhat worse. Gender differentials though are the same among minorities as among the majority, i.e. girls do better. Some, but not all, of the ethnic disadvantages can be explained by social class origins. At upper secondary and beyond minorities tend to have higher rates of staying on after the end of compulsory schooling – including Caribbeans and Bangladeshis. Minorities are also over-represented in tertiary education compared with the majority group. Different explanations are probably needed at different stages of the educational system: at lower secondary, there are hints of the kind of ‘oppositional culture’ among some Blacks; at upper secondary, higher staying-on rates may be due to expectations (or experience) of discrimination in the labour market, making the ‘opportunity cost’ of staying in education lower. Traditional family structures and parenting styles may give some minorities advantages in the educational system. Heath highlights the intellectual challenge: while there is plenty of descriptive material of attainment patterns, convincing explanations, particularly for the diversity between minorities, are largely absent. In particular we do not really understand what part is played by actual or expected discrimination, and how much is due to properties (e.g. social capital) of the communities themselves.

Leeson raises a key point when he argues that increasingly migrants will see host countries as but a stepping stone in their life progression. The concept of providing citizenship education to enhance the acculturation of migrant populations will not work in a context when individuals increasingly see themselves as part of a global rather than national community. The adaptation of new migrants thus requires a much broader notion of citizenship education: not simply with regard to civic values, democracy and Britishness, but also less abstract forms of knowledge which impact directly upon their mobility such as qualifications, labour market issues, entitlements and service provision, and issues to do with intercultural communication and global issues. These however, will enhance the global community, but not necessarily the UK.

Kelan and Lehnert explore the changing educational needs and expectations of Generation Y, people born roughly between 1977 and 2000. Generation Y is a prime example of how changes in the economic mode of production are intertwined with changes in technology, society and education in that Generation Y demand different styles of teaching and learning. Generation Y has grown up in a world that has been transformed by new technologies that make new ways of communicating, working and exchanging information and creating knowledge possible. Generation Y has a unique vantage point on these changes because they are coming of age in a time when they still are faced with institutions shaped by the old model but their way of behaving is more in line with new ways of behaving. While institutions change slowly, Generation Y already lives the new lifestyle predicted by theorists of the information and knowledge society. Generation Y is said to be special, sheltered, confident, conventional, team oriented, achieving and pressured. It was highlighted how central technology is for Generations Y and that the learning style of Generation Y is said to be collaborative, multicultural, and visual. In the workplace Generation Y are assumed to work to live and not live to work and to value respect and judge people on merit.  In the work context, flexibility is regarded as a key skill, and the transferability of skills is seen as a central personal asset Generation Y’s life paths are increasingly spent in a global networked economy, one in which information gathering is facilitated by new means of technology and bureaucratic organisations are replaced by network organisations, which require flexible and individualised labour. In conclusion Generation Y is said to be significantly different to previous generations, particularly in their understanding that jobs are not for life. Life-long learning is therefore not only a necessity for this cohort, but due to the integration of work and life, an enjoyable, challenging and achievement-oriented aspect of everyday life.

Another key factor will be that of class. Social inequalities in health and life expectancy have already been covered by Howse; Brown and Lauder take up the issue of social class divisions in education. After reviewing current knowledge on education attainment and class and social mobility, they turn to the future. The first scenario they consider is that by incremental policy measures social class inequalities in education and social mobility will be reduced. Crucial to this scenario is the expectation that the expansion of global economic activity will increase the demand for educated labour. This view suggests that the key to greater upward social mobility for working class students will be through education. By the same token, those with lower educational qualifications will need to re-educate and re-train for more cognitively demanding work. They point out that lifelong learning will contribute to this mobility as people change career paths at crucial times of their lives in order to remain upwardly mobile. Given that we can expect older workers to remain in work for much longer than is now the case careers will be extended and consequently this will require greater provision for lifelong learning. Secondly, Brown and Lauder consider a downfall in global employment. The middle class will then come under increasing pressure as professional jobs are off shored to China and India. Moreover the corporate strategy for creating an elite of the ‘talented’ while much other ‘knowledge’ work is routinised means that the middle class will be divided between the fortunate few and the majority who will not see their life chances improve. Indeed there may be a decline as what were once seen as middle class occupations both in the number of jobs on offer and polarisation in terms of income. In the third scenario, the state rebalances the economy to generate high end manufacturing in renewables. This creates the possibility of more high skills jobs, leading to greater upward mobility. This enables a high proportion of high earning taxpayers to fund state expenditure. It also creates the possibility that the values underlying education may change. In particular, as in the Nordic countries, there is a greater sense of collectivism as opposed to individualism. This means that the society will extend the concepts of worth and reward beyond the current labour market to funding careers for those in care giving. There will in effect be a citizen’s wage which guarantees income in return for active participation in society.

8.   Appendix 1

Process

Following the specification from the challenge team, this paper comprises a brief guide to the process and results and then a more comprehensive overview of material to date.

Process

Stage 1

The following 15 papers were initially commissioned for the Generations and Life Course Challenge.

1. Understanding the changing brain and learning processes

Sarah Blackmore, Imperial

2. Evolving family structures, roles and relationships in light of ethnic and social change

Robin Mann, Oxford

3. Ethnicity and social organisation: changes and challenges

Neli Demireva, Oxford

4. Families, care and work: changes and challenges

Andreas Hoff, Oxford

5. Life course and longevity

Kenneth Howse, Oxford

6. Migration and social integration: changes and challenges

Sarah Spence, Oxford

7. Childhood and education: changes and challenges

Nick Lee, Warwick

8. Adolescence, youth and education: changes and challenges

Bob Michael, Chicago

9. Adult skills requirements and education: changes and challenges

Ken Mayhew, Oxford

10. Adult lives and life long learning: changes and challenges

Stephen McNair, Leicester

11. Later Life and education changes and challenges

George Leeson, Oxford

12.  Family structures and intergenerational transfers  of learning: changes and challenges

John Jessel, Goldsmiths, London

13. Migration, ethnic diversity and education: changes and challenges

Cath Roth, QMW, London

14. Class groups and education: changes and challenges

Hugh Lauder, Bath (with Brown)

15. Life course, technology and education: changes and challenges

Clare O’Malley, Nottingham

The following instructions were given to each author;

Challenge Reviews: Generations and Life Course

The remit of this challenge theme is to understand:

1. Key trends in demographics, family structures, intergenerational relationships and aeging 2025 and beyond
2. Key uncertainties and potential discontinuities in these areas
3. How these trends potentially intersect with developments in science and technology
4. What range of potential futures these trends might point to from the present to 2025-2050
5. What the implications might be for educational goals, structures, methods and resources
6. What evidence exists of interventions and strategies to respond to these different future scenarios

Within this theme a series of papers are being commissioned which will cover the broad areas of family, generations, childhood, ageing, life course, ethnicity, social status and migration. All reviewers will be asked to consider the future implications of changes in science and technology and how these may impact upon their particular field. A small group, who have expertise in education, life-long learning and skills, will in addition be asked to also consider the possible impacts of these changes on trends and drivers within education.

Each paper should be between 5000-8000 words and should broadly follow the following framework.

• The first half of the paper should outline current knowledge and likely future developments in your field. In other words it should be a straightforward state of the art review of current understanding.
• The second half of the paper should be original and exploratory and draw on your own expertise and insight into how the future may develop over the next forty years or so.
• In particular it should;
  • indicate future directions and current signals within the field
  • describe the events or changes that would challenge these assumptions
• Throughout you should consider the future implications of changes in science and technology and how these may impact upon your particular field.
• If your letter has requested this then in addition you should also consider the possible impacts of these changes on trends and drivers within education.

The following briefing paper outlines the broad challenge to our theme and raises some example questions which you may like to consider if relevant. It can be found along with other material on http://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/otherpapers.html

Stage 2

Following the initial commissioning processes, these were revised to 13 papers through combining

• McNair and Leeson and commissioning Leeson to write a paper on Adult lives and life long learning: changes and challenges, which included a specific focus on later life as one of its elements;
• Demireva and Spencer and commissioning Demireva to write a paper on Ethnicity, migration and social organisation: changes and challenges.
• O’Malley dropped out due to illness and personal circumstance.
• Michael dropped out due to illness and it was eventually agreed that Harper would review his work on adolescence.
• Roth and Heath asked to delay their paper Migration, ethnic diversity and education: changes and challenges until 2009 due to RAE. In the end Heath agreed to provide information but not a paper. 
• Mayhew’s paper on work was not pursued due to overlap with Work Challenge.

Stage 3

• A  further paper was commissioned from Elizabeth Kelan, LBS on Different future generations: the needs each generation might have and how each may view education across the life course by 20^th January.
• Harper was also commissioned directly by the team to write a review on demography.

Blakemore: Understanding the changing brain and learning processes, Burnett, Sebastian & Blakemore Imperial

Demireva: Ethnicity, migration  and social organisation: changes and challenges, Neli Demireva, Oxford

Harper: Demography Challenge, Sarah Harper, Oxford

Heath: Migration, ethnic diversity and education: changes and challenges, Anthony Heath, Oxford

Hoff: Families, care and work: changes and challenges Andreas Hoff, Oxford

Howse: Life course and longevity, Kenneth Howse, Oxford

Jessel: Family structures and  intergenerational transfers  of learning: changes and challenges, John Jessel, Goldsmiths, London

Kelan: The Millennial Generation: Generation Y and the Opportunities for a Globalised, Networked Educational System, Elisabeth Kelan and Michael Lehnert, LBS

Lauder: Class groups and education: changes and challenges, Hugh Lauder, Bath (with Brown)

Lee: Childhood and education: changes and challenges, Nick Lee, Warwick

Leeson: Adult lives and life long learning: changes and challenges, George Leeson, Oxford

Mann: Evolving family structures, roles and relationships in light of ethnic and social change, Robin Mann, Oxford

Michael: A Lens on Adolescence, Robert Michael, Chicago

Challenge team members met in Oxford on 22^nd January to review their contributions and address the five key Challenge questions; Generations and Life Course Challenge Workshop

New Council Room

Somerville College, Oxford

Thursday, 22^nd January 2009

P R O G R A M M E

9.30 – 10.00   Introduction

Sarah Harper

10.00-10.15   Life course and longevity

Kenneth Howse, Oxford

10.15-10.30  Childhood and education: changes and challenges

Nick Lee, Warwick

10.30-10.45   Understanding the changing adolescent brain and learning processes

Stephanie Burnett, Imperial

10.45-11.00  Adult lives and life long learning: changes and challenges

George Leeson, Oxford

Paper            Different future generations

available        Elisabeth Kelan, LBS

11.00- 11.45 Coffee

Paper

available        Evolving family structures, roles and relationships in light of ethnic and social change

Robin Mann, Oxford

11.45 – 12.00           Family structures and intergenerational transfers of learning: changes and challenges

John Jessel, London

12.00-12.15   Families, care and work: changes and challenges

Andreas Hoff, Oxford

12.15- 12.30 Ethnicity and social organisation: changes and challenges

Neli Demireva, Oxford

12.30-12.45   Class groups and education: changes and challenges

Hugh Lauder, Bath – still not confirmed

Paper            Migration, ethnic diversity and education: changes and challenges

available        Anthony Heath, Oxford

1.00-2.00      Lunch – Reading Room

2.00-4.00      Discussion: Sarah Harper

Discussion Group (coffee to be served at 3:00 pm)

During the afternoon the group will attempt to summarise the evidence from the reviews and provide insights into potential educational responses.

1. What are the existing observable social and technological practices in this challenge area which we can reasonably confidently expect to continue to 2025?

2. What factors, for example events or changes in social values, might play a significant role in shaping future developments in this challenge area?

3. What are the key uncertainties in the challenge area that may lead to radically divergent future developments, and what might act as the lever for such divergence?

4. What potential future challenges or opportunities might these trends and factors present for education?

5. What existing educational practices or evidence might provide insights into potential responses to these challenges or opportunities?

9.   Appendix 2

Evidence Review Papers

Blakemore: Understanding the changing brain and learning processes, Burnett, Sebastian & Blakemore Imperial

Demireva: Ethnicity, migration  and social organisation: changes and challenges,  Neli Demireva, Oxford

Hoff: Families, care and work: changes and challenges, Andreas Hoff, Oxford

Howse: Life course and longevity, Kenneth Howse, Oxford

Jessel: Family structures and intergenerational transfers of learning: changes and challenges, John Jessel, Goldsmiths, London

Kelan: The Millennial Generation: Generation Y and the Opportunities for a Globalised, Networked Educational System, Elisabeth Kelan and Michael Lehnert, LBS

Lauder: Class groups and education: changes and challenges, Hugh Lauder, Bath (with Brown)

Lee: Childhood and education: changes and challenges, Nick Lee, Warwick

Leeson: Adult lives and life long learning: changes and challenges, George Leeson, Oxford

Mann: Evolving family structures, roles and relationships in light of ethnic and social change, Robin Mann, Oxford

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

Children and their parents

For many years in the UK along with other Western Countries a family could be thought of in terms of a household where children, their married parents and, on occasion, other close relatives such as grandparents live together. However, a number of factors have more recently converged and changed the ’shape’ of such families and households and led to alternatives to the nuclear model outlined above.

Demographic factors such as population ageing and migration, an increase in the breakdown of parental relationships, together with same-sex couples attaining equal; rights to those enjoyed by married ones, have all had an impact on household and family structures and living arrangements (Ermisch and Murphy, 2006).

Lone parent families.

Over the 30-year span between to the 1960s and the mid 1990s the number of nuclear families in the UK fell from 38 to 25% of all households (Clarke, 1996; Office of National Statistics, 1999). Although children living in two-parent households still form the majority, the proportion living in lone parent households (most of which comprise lone mothers) has doubled to around 23% over the last thirty years (Ermisch and Murphy, 2006).

While divorce is regarded as the main cause of lone parent families (Ermisch and Murphy, 2006), further effects on the number of lone parent families also arise from the large number of births to unmarried mothers. The proportion of women who cohabit in their first partnership has risen from about 25% for those born in the 1950s to around 80% for those born in the 1980s (Ermisch and Murphy, 2006). The number of children born outside of marriage has risen dramatically from 9% to 43% 1975 to 2004 and, importantly, the likelihood that cohabiting mothers will eventually form a longer lasting married relationship is less than for women without children. This has implications for intergenerational contact bearing in mind that, since the 1960s, one-parent families have tended to live solo rather than communally (Ermisch and Murphy, 2006). Even if some relationships do remain stable and monogamous, the occurrence in those who choose to ‘live apart together’ can also contribute to restricted parental contact.

The increase in divorce rates and cohabitation also gives rise to more complex arrangements such as reconstituted family households in which some children are the natural offspring of both parents, while in other cases are from just one (Ermisch and Murphy, 2006). On the one hand, an increase in step parenting could suggest a move away from norms expressed through kinship or marriage and could be seen as a social problem or deficit in terms of moral values and any stability that might be associated with these. On the other hand, it is also possible to see such alternatives to the nuclear model as a development of a different kind of social order (Silva and Smart, 1999; Smart, 2004). In terms of the potential for intergenerational contact, McCarthy et al’s (2003) work with step families or ‘clusters’ found that the wellbeing of children was nevertheless maintained in different ways. For example, while some working-class parents formed new non-kinship groupings within single households, middle class parents might maintain kinship links across different households. In all cases there was a sense of sustained relationships with children’s needs at heart. Although parental separation on the one hand can reduce the opportunity for intergenerational encounter, on the other hand, if parents split up and form new relationships this can also increase the range of adult contact available (Dench and Ogg, 2002).

Ethnic diversity

Further scope for diversity in families arises from immigration. For example, Prout (2008) cites a nine-fold increase in the total number of migrants in Western countries from 1965 to 1990 (International Labour Office, 2003, p26) with general agreement that this is an increasing trend (eg, Commission of the European Community, 2001; Ermisch and Murphy, 2006). However, interpreting sources such as UK census data is problematic. While 8% of those living in the UK are recorded as non-white ethnic minority, this could be an under-estimate because many, in particular younger, ethnic minorities are unlikely to register this affiliation (Harper and Levin, 2003). There is also the further issue regarding estimates of the age-distribution of minority groups (Harper and Levin, 2003). In short, the growth in ethnic diversity and concomitant effects of religious affiliation can be seen to have implications for diversity of childhood, children’s lived experience and formation of identity (Connolly, 1998; Garcia-Coll et al, 2004; Orellana et al, 2001 – all cited in Prout 2008,) Family size is a further factor that can vary substantially by ethnic group as suggested from data in the Second Survey of the Millennium Cohort Study. For example, ‘children in Bangladeshi families were most likely to have three or more siblings (32.6%) while White (8%), Mixed (8%) and Indian children (4.8%) were least likely (Hansen and Joshi, 2007).

Effects of an ageing population

It is well known that longer life expectancy coupled with a decline in birth rates have resulted in an ageing population. A recent analysis based upon data from the Office for National Statistics (Falkingham and Grundy, 2007) indicates that in the three decades from mid-1971 to mid-2004 the proportion of people under 16 fell from 25% to 9% while those aged 65 and over increased from 13% to 16% of the total population. It was also reported that while declining fertility played an initial part in population ageing for the UK, increased lifespan has now become a major factor. This is apparent in the current relatively large increase in number and proportion of those aged 85 and over. In addition to the above trends, age distributions are also modulated by earlier fluctuations in birth rates such as the bulge in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This will mean an increase in the numbers of the ‘younger elderly’ who will be in their 60s by around 2020 and who will, of course, eventually become the ‘older old’ (Falkingham and Grundy, 2007).

More specifically and with regard to opportunities for intergenerational encounters, using data from the 1998 British Social Attitudes Survey, Dench and Ogg (2002) have also noted that women giving birth to children in the late 1960s and early 1970s did so at a relatively early age. This has led to a high proportion of young grandparents with more than half of the British population becoming grandparents by the age of 54. When this is taken together with women currently having fewer children a living family can span a number of generations while the number of members belonging to each generation is relatively few. This demographic ‘beanpole’ effect (Hagestad, 2000) is also reflected more generally across Western societies (eg, Letablier and Pennec, 2003).

The availability of grandparents

Although parents and children may be seen as the centrepoint within families, other important roles have been ascribed to other close relatives, in particular grandparents.

In 2003, 26% of all dependent children in Great Britain received childcare from their grandparents (Social Trends, 2006, cited in Broad, 2007). Because grandparents live longer and healthier lives and parents are having children when they are younger, the role of grandparents is increasing (Jerrome, 1993). This also has the effect of increasing the length of time spent as a grandparent, often to around a third of the lifespan (Dench and Ogg, 2002).

Crucial factors influencing the role and level of involvement of grandparents have been identified as being proximity and lineage. Clarke and Roberts (2004) found that the distance grandparents lived from their children was the main factor relating to contact. Furthermore, they found that lineage, regardless of whether the grandparents were maternal or paternal, was more significant than family type in predicting contact: paternal grandparents generally seeing less of their sons’ children, particularly in cases of family breakdown.

The availability of grandparents is also influential in that today’s working mothers often do not have mothers who themselves have careers of their own. If women continue to take on greater career responsibilities and this is coupled with increasing population mobility, then the activity of grandparents in the role of childcare is likely to diminish (Broad, 2007).

In spite of the above concerns recent studies indicate that the level of involvement and frequency of contact of grandparents with their grandchildren is generally far greater than might have been expected. Dench and Ogg (2002) found that 95% of grandparents had seen their grandchild within the last two years and 73% were in physical contact at least once a month, whilst Clarke and Roberts (2004) found that 60% of grandparents saw their grandchild on a weekly basis and 60% also reported having other types of contact including telephone, letter and e-mail. A study carried out by Quadrello et al (2005) has examined the different forms of contact between grandparents and grandchildren between 10 and 15 years of age in the UK, Finland, Spain and Estonia. Face-to-face and landline phone contact were found to occur more frequently in comparison to contact using mobile phones. Texting, letters or cards and e-mail were used less frequently, although e-mail was used more often in the absence of face-to-face contact. Overall, however, the take-up of new communication modes between grandparents and grandchildren was in the minority, about one in eight, and less than might be expected in terms of technological availability. In view of the increasing availability of different channels of communication afforded by new technologies and the control that both young and old have with regard to their use, the effects of these as well as proximity of grandparent-grandchild contact may need further investigation.

Roles taken by grandparents

The roles undertaken by grandparents within the family are varied and their significance has been recognised for some years (DfES, 2003). Clarke and Roberts (2004) have put these into three main groupings: practical, emotional and financial. They found from their survey that childcare, especially with working parents, was a key practical feature with over half of the grandparents babysitting their grandchildren and around 60% looking after a grandchild aged under 15 in the daytime. According to Age Concern (2004), one in four grandparents care for their grandchildren on a regular basis, again, when the children’s parents are working or studying. Looked at from the point of view of children whose mothers are in employment, grandparents take a 34% share of informal childcare, followed by ‘other relatives’ (8%), ‘friends or neighbours’ or childminders (each 7%) (ONS, 2002). This has also been reflected in the first survey of the Millennium Cohort Study (Dex and Ward, 2004) where 33% of parents said that grandparents look after the first child all or most of the time whilst they were at work and carry out 78% of childcare at other times. Grandparents can play a number of important roles such as keeping wider sets of relatives connected and providing a bridge to the past by acting as a source of family history, heritage and traditions; the latter often carried out by telling stories that keep grandchildren aware of their own family experiences and culture (Ross et al, 2005).

While much of the care that is evident for children in their early years may decline as grandchildren get older (Dench and Ogg, 2002; Soule et al, 2005), there is evidence for the importance of the continuing support that is provided by grandparents (Hodgson, 1992). From a more recent study involving young people between the ages of 10 and 19 and their grandparents ranging from their early 50s to late 80s it was found that relationships were more likely to revolve around talking, giving advice and support as grandchildren grew older (Ross et al, 2005). Listening to grandchildren was generally regarded as a key role with many of the young people reporting that they could share problems and concerns with their grandparents who could also act as go-betweens in the family when there were disagreements with their parents (Ross et al, 2005).

Geographical proximity, as noted by Smith and Drew (2002), has been found to be a key factor, not only in the frequency of contact, but also in the closeness in grandparent-grandchild relationships. For example, Hodgson (1992) examined this by comparing those grandparents and grandchildren living within 25 miles of each other (almost half) with those living up to and beyond 500 miles away. A similar finding with grandfathers and grandchildren was obtained by Kivett (1985). Some indication of the prevalence of this closeness might be gained from figures reported by The National Centre for Social Research (1999) which suggest that, in the UK, between 30 and 40% of grandparents lived less than 15 minutes away from a grandchild. However, the extent to which physical distance alone reflects the degree of upbringing and emotional closeness is less clear and Ross et al (2005) have noted that, regardless of proximity, some children contact their grandparents independently of their parents. A further consideration is that it is middle class families who tend to be more geographically separated. While this may result in less frequent contact the deficit is offset by shared holidays, gifts and financial support. Moral values are also shared across generations in these cases (Dench and Ogg, 2002). Again, our knowledge of the effect of the increasing availability of new communication technologies such as e-mail mobile phones on the nature and role of grandparent-grandchild contact may benefit from continued review.

Class, educational and economic influences

The above effects concerning the availability and roles of grandparents are modulated by class and education. For example, divorce rates for those less educated were found to be some 30% higher than for those more educated (Ermisch and Murphy, 2006). A further demographic factor currently influencing intergenerational contact has been identified by Newman and Hatton-Yeo (2008). In response to changing economies families are likely to move to areas where there are better job prospects. Moreover, such economic demands are also accompanied by the increase in single-parent and two-working-parent families.

In addition to the above overall trends, families, of course, vary. There are class, cultural and economic factors. The age of women at their first partnership has also increased from 22 to 25 but the extent to which marriage and motherhood occur later in life has been found to be greater for women who have a higher education (statistics to be checked). Less educated women have children younger (around 24) while more educated women tend to have children when older (median in excess of 30) (Ermisch and Murphy, 2006).

Intergenerational Programs

The scope for intergenerational exchange and support between families can be seen to be compromised in view of some of the above factors such as children with lone or working parents, migration and economic relocation. In view of this there have been developments in provision aimed at purposeful extra-familial support that do not rely on the family. Newman and Hatton-Yeo (2008), for example, characterise these in terms of either educating the young or being concerned with the welfare of older adults. In particular they focus on the teaching and learning roles that can be played by bringing together the different age-groups. The perceived benefits of this enterprise include shared learning positive attitudes among generations and social cohesion (Newman and Hatton-Yeo, 2008)). The underlying theory is drawn from Erikson’s (1963) idea that parallel developmental needs of young and old result in a special kind of synergy between these generations. In view of this participants in intergenerational programmes are usually populated by those who are younger and older while missing out a middle generation. The idea that a generational synergy can be developed outside the family setting is, of course, fundamental to such programs.

In their review of the literature, Springate, Atkinson and Martin (2008) detail the range of ‘intergenerational practice’ in the UK and the role of those who take part in it. Although, these are extrafamilial enterprises and therefore lie outside the scope of the present discussion, acknowledgement of these is due in that the outcomes may feed back, even if mainly indirectly through any effects that they may have on the social ambience.

The family and intergenerational learning

So far the nature of families and households today and the contact between different generations such as children, their parents and grandparents has been outlined. In view of the impact of the different demographic, social, economic and cultural factors there is considerable diversity in families and how households are formed. It is against this background that the kinds of learning exchanges and personal developments that might occur can now be considered.

The family can be a hub of mutual support, influence and learning in a multitude of ways. Although some of these may be systematic and intentional, much of what may influence each family member can be informal and incidental. Shared values, expectations, aspirations, knowledge, beliefs, skills, behaviours and the language we use develop around the variety of domestic activities that family members engage in. These activities can range from playing together and talking to each other about each other to more specific pursuits such as sport, gardening, reading, shopping and watching TV. We are also living at a time where new information and communication technologies are finding their way into homes and lives at many different levels.

In one sense it is easy to characterise the role that older family members can play in handing down knowledge and wisdom as if these are fixed entities that can be passed down through generations. While certain skills and knowledge may be passed from one generation to the next, other things are continually changing. Not only are we living at a time of rapid scientific and technological development but we are also living at a time of rapid social and cultural change. In turn the demands made by society change in relation to these and what is valued and seen as relevant can influence how each individual develops.

The above resources of networks and norms of shared values are among the individual and community assets underlying the concept of social capital (Balatti and Falk, 2002). Social exclusion and disadvantage result in negative social capital (Bostrom, 2002) and the importance of the family as the individual’s initial source of social capital has been argued by Kerka (2003). She has registered concerns arising from social changes such as increased life expectancy, greater mobility, increased reliance on non-familial caregivers at both ends of the lifespan and a more age-segregated society such as retirement communities and youth culture and the potential for inequities working against characteristics of positive social capital (Schuller et al, 2002, cited in Kerka, 2003).

What is meant by ‘transfer’ and how this complements what else goes on between family members can lie at the heart of what is understood by learning. The phrase ‘intergenerational transfer of learning’ carries with it the idea that learning results from something that is transferred from one generation to another or, at least, a series of such acquisitions. Taken on its own this, of course, reduces learning to a quantitative increase in knowledge or procedures familiar to behaviourists; a one-way transaction thereby ignoring the agency of the learner. Constructivist or sociocultural approaches are well known in that they allow for learners acting on what they receive in their own way; building, modifying, and often discarding earlier mental structures so that learning can also become a way of seeing and understanding things differently; a qualitative change (eg, Fosnot, 1996; Wertsch and Tulviste, 1996). Acknowledging this creative potential in the learner not only transforms the idea of learning and what can go on amongst family members but also what society contributes to families as well as what families can contribute to society.

Family members respond to each other, each in their own unique way. In view of this there is a contribution that all family members, regardless of their generation, can make towards each other’s development as well as to the family as a whole. Even if a more experienced other plays a scaffolding role (Vygotsky, 1978) so that with this assistance a task can be carried out by a learner that would otherwise not be attempted successfully alone there is still scope for mutually helpful collaboration. This is, for example, inherent in Rogoff’s (1990) use of the term ‘guided participation’ which suggests a more active role played by children so they can collaborate with, as well as be guided by others. Intra-generationally, research carried out amongst siblings by Gregory (2001) suggests an evenly balanced interplay or ’synergy’ where understandings can be developed mutually rather than primarily in one direction. If the idea of transfer is to be considered more generally in the family setting then, firstly, its scope as a multi-way intergenerational phenomenon should be taken into account and, moreover, its relationship to learning considered in relation to a creative interplay or synergy.

Dissatisfaction with the idea of learning as acquisition has been expressed by Hodkinson and his co-workers (Hodkinson, 2005; Hodkinson et al, 2007) who see this as separating the learner from the process of learning and what is learned. In particular, they argue that ‘the processes and products of learning are deeply intertwined, and neither can be understood without considering the positions, dispositions, and identities of [the] learner’ (Hodkinson et al, 2007, p14) with no clear separation between learning and identity. For some people, each is part of the other with learning not just about becoming but also about being. A more recent characterisation of this has been cited by Plumb (2008) in the phrase ‘learning as dwelling’. Here it is also argued that learning is not about the intake of external knowledge into the mind of an isolated individual but a ‘process through which learners forever weave themselves into the fabric of their natural, social and cultural worlds’ (Plumb, 2008, p62).

A view of learning occurring as part of practice and the social interactions that take place in the associated settings has been developed by Lave and Wenger (1991). They argue a distinction between the approach to academic learning taken in schools or other education institutions and learning that occurs more naturally as part of day -to-day social activity. Academic approaches towards learning focus on representations of the world that have been abstracted from the real life setting where they would normally occur. These representations can then be manipulated theoretically and can be helpful in developing explanations and predictions about the world. As McCormick (1997) has noted, knowledge derived in this way is applicable more generally to a variety of situations whereas practical knowledge is limited to particular situations. While academic approaches can focus on more conscious systematic forms of teaching, by way of contrast learning may arise within the practice occurring in an everyday setting (Lave, 1989). In this way learners engage less formally from their own perspective rather than from an external perspective that might otherwise characterise a teaching curriculum. In this way learning is situated within, rather than isolated from, the practical setting and the social relations that form part of this (Lave and Wenger, 1991).

Learning also occurs within a community comprised of participants who make a range of contributions. A key point is that the contributions can be at different levels depending on those who happen to be participating in an activity where understandings and purposes are shared. Lave and Wenger (1991) use the term ‘community of practice’ in relation to individuals who participate in a common purpose and share understandings about their actions in relation to this.

The family can be likened to a community of practice in the sense that there is mutual support with members playing complementary roles in the practice of day-to-day living without any external systematic learning agenda. Even with children growing up as part of a family in business their early experiences of the social practice within the family and the knowledge and skills associated within this are inextricably linked (Hamilton, 2006). On some occasions what is shared and learnt can be more systematic and focused while in many other respects learning can be incidental and informal.

From her ethnographic study of working class children between the ages of 8 and 10 Maddock (2006) has drawn attention to the unique range of experiences and opportunities provided by families for their children. Through this, children may come to value some activities rather than others. Underlying these differences, though, was a common but subtle agenda for children’s learning linked to personal human concern into which children fit activities and experiences in terms of what makes ‘human sense’ (Donaldson, 1978). This she has contrasted with the more externally driven and overtly goal-directed learning agendas that can be imposed by adults.

Families are not formal learning institutions and although they are populated in part by adults the learning space can be very different from the more uniform and target-driven demands that have to be managed within the confines of a learning initiative. If intergenerational programmes and extrafamilial paradigms (Newman and Hatton-Yeo, 2008) are being implemented in response to a perceived deficit in some children’s lives then a key challenge for the future is to preserve some of those qualities of the family learning space and the associated diversity.

Some insight into the learning dynamics that go on within families can be gained through the work carried out by Kenner et al, (2005) in homes in East London. Although there was a focus on the learning that evolved through interactions between children and their grandparents, the position of parents in this context was also considered. The focus was on the role of grandparents in view of the significant role they play in childcare.

Time constraints upon parents

In contrast to parents who were working and busy with a variety of day to day responsibilities, grandparents could spend more time with their grandchildren and develop a special bond (Weissvourd, 1998). Children and their grandparents each had their own vulnerabilities and were able to offer mutual support for each other. There was scope for a more relaxed and hands-on relationship when engageing in activities (Jessel et al, 2004). The home setting, then, could offer scope for a more evenly balanced learning relationship, or ’synergy’ (Gregory, 2001) than might occur in more formal educational contexts. In particular, synergistic learning relationships occurred between children and their grandparents. This gave scope for reciprocal social relationships and joint interaction in learning and contrasts with the role of the teacher as controller rather than as learning partner (Bruner, 1985). In the context of the family, mutual trust and respect for each member’s perspective (Rommetveit, 1974, 1979) was regarded as important to this process. The value given to an activity within a culture in which learners identify can also influence learning interactions (Goodnow, 1990).

Reading and language

Families can play a key role in the development of literacy. A parent reading books to children is an everyday part of life in many families. Although this can involve both mothers and fathers, it has been found that mothers tend to do this more (Nichols 2000; Connie and Sharen, 2004). Grandparents also make important contributions to their grandchildren’s education (Strom and Strom, 1995) and with regard to literacy performance, grandparents’ reading skills and practices are reflected across generations (Parsons and Bynner, 2006). This was also evident from the work carried out by Kenner et al (2005). A further focus on the story-reading within Bangladeshi families revealed how the multiple worlds inhabited by a grandchild during story-reading were transformed ’syncretically’ on a number of levels (Gregory et al, 2007). The idea of syncretism as a creative process where people reinvent culture, drawing on familiar and new resources is argued to be of central importance in that it allows for cultures to develop rather than remain frozen. This was evident within the books that were used, such as through the pictorial illustrations, as well as linguistically in the story reading (Gregory et al, 2007).

The role of new technologies

Although the parts taken by human beings as key players in family life have been outlined, there is another element that is finding its way into people’s relationships: new information and communication technologies (ICTs). If we regard these solely in terms of such functions as storing and retrieving information and communication to others then they may not appear to be so new. However, what marks out the present day developments in this field are their portability, accessibility and affordability.

New technologies and family communication

The number of older as well as younger people using mobile phones and the internet to communicate has increased in recent years (Haddon, 2004; Age Concern, 2002; Mobile Data Association, 2005). Attitudes amongst elderly towards internet use have been found to vary from the ‘users’ who were open to learning something new regardless of their age and ‘non-users’ who did regard age as an obstacle (Blit-Cohen and Litwin, 2004). Health factors such as deteriorating eyesight also marked out users from non-users. Active social communication was found to take place over the internet. The extent to which people own and use technology also has a bearing on the availability of social support. From their European study Mante-Meijer et al (2001) found that in countries where the technologies have penetrated less there was greater reliance on settings where the relevant skills could be learnt formally. Informal learning, more evident in high-penetration countries, was found to take place in a variety of contexts such as within families and between work colleagues. Although Selwyn (2004) has found that the extent to which children influence their parents’ take-up of computers was slight, children were able to play a more active part in this with their grandparents. The situation has, of course, been rapidly changing over the last few years as new technology has penetrated and proliferated. More recently, Gatto and Tak (2008) have reported increasing use by older adults of computers for communication as well as entertainment and access to information.

New technologies and family learning

Based on a survey of the views of parents of children from 3 to 5 years of age attending nurseries in Scotland, McPake et al (2005) have identified three types of competence developed through the use of ICT: technical (basic operational skills), cultural (understanding of the social roles that ICT plays) and learning. The latter, seen to be of particular significance to young children, refers to their ability to use ICT for social and cultural purposes, including communication, self-expression and entertainment as well as their work. ICT was used in the home to support early literacy and numeracy, communication and musical skills, as well as in helping children learn how to learn. Importantly, the degree of competence children had acquired appeared to depend on such factors as access to equipment, support in learning to use it, and the particular interests and aptitudes of older family members. The authenticity seen to be afforded by technological activities can aid learning (Murphy and Hennessy, 2001). This has been followed up in the family context by Jane and Robbins (2004) who have also reported on the potential benefit of such activities to grandparents in that it allows them to revisit and explore technology in a new and fresh way as a result of interacting with their grandchildren. Kenner et al (2008) noted the role of the computer as mediating artefact (Crook, 2001) and participant in learning activities with grandparents and grandchildren. In this context, however, the importance of the role of the grandparent in structuring the approach to the activities was also noted (Kenner et al, 2008).

The future: changes and challenges

We can look into the future in different ways. At one level the predicted patterns of ageing might not surprise us. People will live longer and healthier lives and assuming the reduction in fertility rates continues, then in the coming decades over half the population in the UK will be over 50. Although there will be transient effects such as the ‘age wave’ resulting from the high fertility rates of the 1960s, there will continue to be a large representation of older people and different generations of families with relatively few offspring co-existing. We may also be unsurprised about the forecast that with continuing rates of migration, ethnic diversity will also become more widespread within the UK. We might also make a reasonable guess at the career involvement and the prevalence of working mothers as well as fathers increasing within the system with the consequent reduction of availability of within-family childcare. We might also be quite comfortable predicting that technology may not only change but become more available.

What may be more difficult to predict, however, is how the different trends might interact. For example, while there is more scope for ethnic diversity within families, the cultural effects are not certain. It is not certain, for example, to what extent immigrant groups will become assimilated, nor how acculturation will take effect, so that the values, the culture and the customs merge with the majority population with time. Conversely, some communities might retain a strong heritage and cultural identity. There may be further tensions in retaining identity if family members are dispersed geographically because of economic demand and globalisation. While information and communication technologies have the power to enable younger family members to become independent and lose their cultural identity they can also, at the same time, facilitate cultural contact within and across national boundaries. It is likely that the continued weakening of horizontal household ties through divorce and other instabilities in relationships will mean that vertical intergenerational links and influences will become more important (Owen et al, 2004). However, this will also be in a context where an increased active lifespan together with employment rights for the elderly may mean that those family members who in the past have played this role may become more likely to take on the pivotal role of working and supporting those both younger and older than themselves (Dench and Ogg, 2002). We do not know how family members will continue to balance these demands and whether families can remain as coherent cohesive units. We do not know whether grandparents will continue to have the time for childcare and that special bond and, for that matter, whether grandfathers rather than grandmothers will have to play a greater role.

The challenge for some minority communities could be in terms of maintaining a heritage identity. Even if there are collective communal initiatives that support this, the role of the family could be crucial in this respect. While grandparents have been an active source of cultural knowledge and practice in the past, how this role might be picked up by future generations is less certain. In addition, particular occupations and the associated skills are less likely to remain stable within a given family and so learning needs could become less predictable. In turn this could affect the status of older generations as authoritative sources of information and skills. We are also living at a time when information is not only much more readily accessible but also is there in greater variety, quantity, detail and abundance.

Work patterns will affect what goes on within families. Apart from the possibility of a longer active life which has career implications, the demands of the labour market in response to shortages of particular skills will mean that patterns in work, training and education will change when viewed from a life-long perspective. The blurring of boundaries between living, working and learning currently experienced may continue to progress; particularly as new technologies, mobile communications, and global business practices can keep people electronically connected at all times of the day and night regardless of whether they are at a place of work, at home, or on holiday (Harrison, 2008). Perhaps the biggest challenge to families in relation to this context is managing the balance between work and leisure – or, indeed, a new order of family life. Although flexible working patterns could assist this process there is also the possibility that the more traditional opportunities for family and intergenerational interaction, such as in the evenings and at weekends, may disappear.

A report carried out by the Future Foundation (2004), has suggested that up to 23 million people in the UK may be at risk of digital exclusion in 2025. While in the past a ‘digital divide’ has been framed in terms of a lack of availability of digital resources, more sophisticated notions of digital inclusion or exclusion also consider broader problems of social inclusion and engagement (Warschauer, 2004). Selwyn (2002), for example, argues that access to technology in itself is insufficient in promoting a digitally inclusive society and results from an adult continuing education survey carried out with his co-workers (Gorard et al, 2000) support his contention that access should be meaningful, functional, and of perceived relevance. In terms of social capital this also presents a challenge that belongs as much to the family as in the public domain. The use of ICT in the home can reduce the time that families interact as a whole. Sanger’s (1997) work suggests that, in contrast to a family watching the same programmes on the one and only television receiver in the house, the increased availability of technology such as video games has segregated families; parents, for example, know very little about what their children are doing when they are each in their own rooms in different parts of the home. We are, perhaps, living at a time when families could be encouraged to negotiate rules around the use of new technologies. On this basis there is a need for parents to talk to children about the dangers of the internet and encourage them to look critically at the information they find on the internet and other media. Similarly, as more mobile phones become available, it is timely to address questions on how such technology is shaping family life and how families are shaping the use of technology.

While this article began with a characterisation of the family in terms of the space delineated by a household and relatively monogamous relationships, the possibility exists for the development of more complex relationships involving different generations including parents and children. What we regard as a ‘virtual’ space today may take on a more tangible coherent and connected life of its own as we are able, through communication technologies, to maintain, sustain and develop relationships. The space in which we live and learn may no longer be defined by four walls and a roof. In this context the challenge for ‘family’ members may be one of identifying and contributing to a group identity, even if this identity is dynamic in nature. The syncretic processes (Gregory, 2001) noted earlier could have a role to play here.

The implications arising from the possible blurring of chronological divisions of education (Harper, 2008) for intergenerational learning are widespread. Segmentation of education may be less distinct. For example, the role of the university could become a more continuous one where people remain connected as part of a life long learning community. With regard to children’s learning and development, another challenge is for teachers to know more about the learning that goes on within families so that they can learn from this as well as allow their own institutional approaches (which will be different) to interface in a sensitive way. This is still an under-researched area. While studies such as the Teaching and Learning Research Programme’s Learning Lives (Hodkinson et al, 2008) have begun to contribute to the literature on the kind of learning going on throughout peoples lives both formally and informally, further attention will still be needed in understanding the different kinds of learning, cultural practices and development taking place in a variety of out-of-school settings including the family.

Older people, of course, are not fixed entities. The older people of 2050 will have been the younger people of today who will have taken with them not only the practices we associate with young people today but also some of the attitudes to change and flexibility that we may consider a hallmark of our time. Assuming the infants of today will be the elders of the future then, to survive as a responsive and flexible community in a changing world, what they will take with them into that future will not just be the transferred remnants of yesterday but also the ability to play their part in creating the culture of tomorrow.

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This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

Training and education is individually and societally important. Their primary purpose is perhaps best summed up by the following remarks from the rector of Harvard University, who although speaking specifically about the role of a university, encompasses the essence of all education:

“A university is not about results in the next quarter; it is not even about who a student has become by graduation. It is about learning that moulds a lifetime; learning that transmits the heritage of millennia; learning that shapes the future.”

(Drew Faust, Rector of Harvard, in his inaugural address in 2007)

When – as we shall see in the body of this review – people in later life are saying they want to be responsible and contribute in the workplace, the community and the family, they are also saying they need the skills to do this, and these will often be skills that they may not have acquired through education and training earlier in life. Education in an ageing society is key to the quality of life of people in later life (Mercken, 2004).

When people in later life need to prepare financially and socially for this stage of their life, they are also saying they need the skills to do this.

As longevity has increased, most individuals face the prospect of spending a quarter of their lives in training and education (at the beginning of their lives), 30-40 years in the workplace, and 20-30 years in retirement. The balance of lifelong learning needs to reflect this demographic life course balance.

There can be no question that quality pre-primary, primary, secondary, higher and vocational education and training are extremely important in a globalised world with intense competition, but there is inherently more to education and training than early learning alone. Lifelong learning is essential for the constant up-skilling that is required in a fast developing world, where technology and demographic change pose their own challenges and opportunities in the workplace. But lifelong learning and late life learning are more than equipping people for the workplace. They are also concerned with equipping individuals of all ages for full citizenship in their families and communities, enabling them to make contribution and be responsible for development.

The education and training policies of the European Union were in theory at least boosted by the Lisbon Strategy in 2000. This, however, focused on growth and jobs and as such is a narrow focus given the ageing of European populations and the changing perceptions and expectations of the older age groups in these populations. The European strategy still provides some key issues worthy of note in a UK context for later life and education.

According to the Council of the European Union, in the wake of its agreement that Member States should have coherent and comprehensive lifelong learning strategies in place by 2006, the status is that most Member States, members of the EEA and Croatia and Turkey have progressed in respect of at least defining strategies, but lifelong guidance needs particular attention (European Commission, 2008). Countries are at one of the following stages of progress in this area: a strategy, framework, validation system or national policies in place (17 countries); developing strategy, framework or validation system (7); lifelong learning policies in place but no explicit strategy (7). However, implementation remains the greatest and most difficult challenge. According to the Commission report on progress, adult participation in lifelong learning is no longer on track to achieve the benchmark, which at 12.5% of 25-64 year olds participating in education and training is higher than the EU average in 2006 of just 9.6%. However, the UK participation in 2006 stood at more than 25%. Generally, the participation of older workers in these activities is problematic.

The German Government acknowledges that lifelong learning is one of the biggest political and societal challenges facing Germany today (Federal Ministry of Education and Research, 2008) and that implementing the ideas of the European Action Plan is critical to the future of the individual, of society and of trade and industry, taking the role of lifelong learning solidly outside the traditional arena of the workplace. The German Government’s Committee on Innovation in Continuing Training make 10 recommendations, which may feed usefully into the UK debate on lifelong learning and learning in later life. Some of these recommendations relate to:

• motivation and responsibility: an individual’s motivation and willingness should be increased, and general public awareness to the need for lifelong learning in a changing globalised world is key
• recognition and acceptance: a move toward skills and competences would increase acceptance of lifelong learning. Learning processes need to encourage active (full) citizenship
• linked and cross-cutting sectors of learning: this is vital to establish equal opportunity
• transparency, quality, development and expansion
• integration through education: intercultural education to foster intercultural skills
• intergenerational learning: lifelong learning must remain attractive post-employment
• active participation in a democratic culture, tolerance and open-mindedness
• expansion of lifelong learning for and with enterprises
• learning without borders.

Let us then look at what research tells us about later life and the future, the changes and the challenges.

2. The changes and the challenges

The UK demographics of ageing speak their own clear speak. The number and therefore potentially the visibility of people in later life have increased, and with visibility comes demands. A particular aspect of recent (and future) demographic development is the increasing ethnic diversity of the UK population in view of the high levels of immigration (Leeson, 2005b). Migrants pose particular challenges to an ageing population – both in respect of their labour force participation but also in respect of their ageing in place. In terms of labour force participation, there is the issue of “green card” restrictions, a particularly sensitive issue with regard to ageing as many migrants work with the health and social care of older people (Leeson and Harper, 2006a; Cangiano and Leeson, 2008). Ageing in place brings cultural confrontation – family-based care tradition in a regime of welfare provision. However, there is the key issue of lifelong learning for migrants, many of whom see the UK as a stepping stone to other countries (primarily the USA, but also elsewhere in the EU) and lifelong learning to enhance full citizenship is unlikely to be pertinent to a group who see themselves as part of a global rather than a national community. Indeed, this latter aspect of the globalisation of citizenship may also apply to younger groups of non-migrants in the UK, and the question of citizenship education at the global versus the national level therefore needs to be addressed: is it possible to encourage full national citizenship (with all that that concept entails) while rooting this in a globalisation context? The German Government Committee on Continuing Training highlights that globalisation and the rise of the knowledge society pose enormous challenges that demographic change will considerably amplify, and in this context the importance of learning as more than a workability qualifier is key (Federal Ministry of Education and Research, 2008). In addition, the Committee underlines the position of Germany as a country with many immigrants and the role of lifelong learning in the integration process.

In addition, the concept of retirement from the workplace has changed dramatically, moving from rest to reward to right, and now arguably moving to one of responsibility (Harper, 2006; Leeson and Harper, 2006, 2007, 2008). While it has been argued that retirement is associated with a significant loss of identity for the individual (Phillipson, 1998), more recent research would indicate that this is no longer generally the case (Leeson, 2006; Leeson and Harper, 2006, 2007).

Not only has the concept and content (Leeson, 2006) of retirement changed, but the timing has changed dramatically over the course of the last two or three generations. This was a result of the introduction of early retirement schemes across Europe and given the anomaly of early retirement and increasing longevity, policy responses in recent years has been to encourage/force late life workers to remain in the workplace (Ebbinghaus, 2006). The individual and societal consequences for changes in the balance of life stages has a number of defining outcomes (Laslett, 1989; Blaikie, 1999), much of which is associated with the rhetoric rather than the rationale, much the same way that an ageing population moved from a problem to a challenge to an opportunity in the course of 20-30 years at the end of the 20^th century, despite the underlying demographic trends at least remaining unchanged. So in the 1980s, we saw the introduction of the third age rather than old age and this would require gargantuan efforts from societal institutions to adjust to the needs and demands of these cultural trustees of the future (Laslett, 1989). Third agers were active, well-educated, well-off, in good health and demanding – and, above all, different from previous generations. However, not to deny that this stage of life may well be defined also by dependency and frailty at some stage, the fourth age was conveniently coined.

Research focused on these new generations of third agers – the baby-boomers – and the ways in which they would change society fundamentally (Leeson, 2006; Carnegie UK Trust, 1993). There was an implicit danger in the glorification almost of later life that dependency and frailty would become phenomena of a bygone age. Strangely, what began quite simply as a rejection from the workplace became a defining moment for a new generation of consumers with a completely new lifestyle for this life stage (Blaikie, 1999; Vincent, 1999).

So later life, in the first decade of the 21^st century, is firmly defined as a life stage of choice, control, independence, opportunity, creativity and personal development without significant financial fears, at least for the majority (Leeson and Harper, 2007, 2008; AXA, 2008)

In the following, we shall consider key areas of importance in later life to the individual and to society. In understanding the expectations of people to these key areas, we shall understand the cohorts in later life – and be better equipped to meet their needs and harness their talents.

2.1. Housing

During the course of the latter decades of the 20^th century, housing and ageing became a central issue in discussions relating to the preparation for retirement. Despite repeated calls for mobility and to move in time, both younger and older generations display a solid lack of propensity to move to housing, which would be more suitable in later life. Staying put is still the preferred option (Leeson, 2000, 2001, 2004). Efforts were made to improve the availability and choice of suitable housing options for the ageing population. These options were designed to address the promotion of independence and self-determination in later life, something which had been the focus of research up through the 1990s (Leeson et al, 2004). The policy aim was to enable people as they aged to remain in the home of their choice for as long as they desired, although there was evidence of an increasing interest in alternative forms of housing in later life (Leeson, 2001; Daatland, 2000).

Increasingly, housing and ageing are now seen from the perspective of independent, resourceful people in search of attractive housing in later life. Gone is the idea that retirement meant sheltered accommodation and wardens.

As Leeson, Harper and Levin (2004) point out much of the discussion about housing in later life has little foundation in empirical evidence elucidating the preferences of those concerned. Instead, discussions are often based on preconceived ideas about the attitudes, behaviour and aspirations of these people, relating more therefore to the assumptive world of policy makers and providers than to that of people themselves (Wilson, 1991, 1997).

An individual’s home is now a defining part of his/her identity and lifestyle. It is where we relax, entertain, are entertained, share our experiences with family and friends, learn. It is from here we communicate with the world. Given the lifestyle association of housing and the changing role of people in later life, a change of housing in later life is indeed a lifestyle choice (Hanson, 2001). This lifestyle choice is reflected to some extent in King et al (2000) with reference to older people moving to the warmer climes of Southern Europe, for example, for part of the year.

The research reveals that generations have been, and in later life expect to remain, staying put generations (for example, Leeson, 2006). However, it would seem that the prepare-for-later-life debate has at least brought about one significant change – the proportion stating that they had not thought about their housing needs and desires in later life has been eliminated. This does not mean, however, that people expect in great numbers to seek out new and alternative forms of housing in later life. On the contrary, they expect to stay put. Even in the face of increasing dependency on the support of others, staying put remains the expectation of most.

In terms of attitudes and behaviours of those generations retiring over the next 20-30 years, there are a number of interesting conclusions from the research:

Although it is unlikely that mobility will increase significantly or permanently housing will become a key part of our lifestyle and identity. Our homes will be centres of activity, including not only of social leisure but also of educational attainment as we, as individuals, see the benefits of life long continued education – not necessarily as a meritable aim but more as a means to achieve optimal lifestyle benefits in later life. Learning will need to come into the home but individuals will also seek learning combined with social activity both at home and abroad, combining community contribution as a volunteer (also abroad) with individual experience;

However, despite our increasing longevity, there will still be a period – albeit decreasing – of our lives when we need help and support in our homes. We shall be increasingly reluctant to sacrifice our independence. Access to information via technological channels will have made us and our families knowledgeable and challenging to the providers of help and support. Immediate redress to social services will decline as we seek alternative, more flexible solutions to our help and support needs – e.g. live-in migrant carers.

2.2 Late life work and retirement

The ageing of the population has led to political and economic consideration with regard to the intergenerational social contract on which many welfare models are dependent. In many countries, there is increasing doubt about the robustness of pensions systems, both public and private, both with regard to the financing of these and with regard to their ability to live up to people’s welfare expectations in old age (Munell, 2002; Clark, 2003; Whiteside, 2002).

As discussed above, on the one hand, demographic development is extending the length of life expectancy, and on the other hand, withdrawal from the labour force has been occurring earlier since the introduction of early retirement schemes in the 1970s and 1980s, although the average age of withdrawal has shown some signs of increase in line with the aims of the EU Lisbon Treaty.

Across Europe, there is a divergence of gender differences in labour force participation, and in broader terms the structural changes in labour forces in terms of gender equality have reached those aged 45-60 years.

Research reveals that work has a relatively low level of importance in relation to identity (Leeson and Harper, 2007; Leeson, 2004, 2006). Family is most important in terms of identity (two thirds of those aged 40-60 years globally according to the Global Ageing Survey (Leeson and Harper, 2007)).

With the advent of early retirement and partial retirement schemes, and with an increasing recognition of the importance of the ageing workforce and population, a wealth of research was carried out to elucidate the popularity of such schemes, their success in bringing unemployed young people into the labour force, attitudes to the schemes among both employees and employers, levels of satisfaction, and life after withdrawal from the labour force (for example, Clark and Spengler, 1980; Clark, 1980; Hurd and Boskin, 1984; Pozzebon and Mitchel, 1989; Trinder et al, 1992; Hurd and McGarry, 1993; Guillemard and Walker, 1994; OECD, 1996; Walker, 1997; Platman, 2003; Taylor, 2003; Platman and Maltby, 2004; Taylor et al, 2004; Leeson and Harper, 2006).

In relation to attitudes and expectations to withdrawal from the labour force, we shall focus on the pre-retirement generations aged 40-60 years, drawing particularly on results from the Danish Longitudinal Future Study and the Global Ageing Survey to underpin general trends. Among those still working in these pre-retirement generations, almost 50% at the global level expect to continue working for as long as possible with an additional 30% expecting to retire when they are old enough to receive their pension. Only just over 10% expect to take early retirement. Similar trends are found in the UK with 41 per cent expecting to continue working for as long as possible, 29% expecting to retire when they are old enough to receive their pension, and 18 per cent expecting to take early retirement.

The corresponding figures for those still-working after age 60 years at the global level are 54% expecting to continue working for as long as possible, 17% expect to retire when they are old enough to receive their pension, and just 5 per cent expect to take early retirement, while they are 57%, 20% and 3% respectively in the UK. Furthermore, globally, approximately 70% of the cohorts expecting to continue working will do so because they want to work rather than feeling they have to continue to work, and in the UK this is true for 82%.

Thus, substantial numbers of over 50s are still working, globally and in the UK, and among these early retirement does not seem to be the preferred option.

By the early 21^st century, as governments initiate measures to discourage early retirement, it does seem that expectations have stabilised, and there is a measure of success in halting the increasing expectations to retire early. However, it is still the case that proportions expecting to take early retirement are higher among skilled workers, among employees with occupational pensions, and among those expecting a better standard of living after withdrawal.

Longitudinal analyses of the timing of withdrawal from the labour force reveal that those stating that they expect to retire early in successive waves comprise the most stable group inasmuch as this group has the smallest proportion changing their expectations between waves. In addition, among those changing their expectations there is a significant shift towards expecting to take early retirement.

Reforms of early retirement and pensions scheme are but one of a number of initiatives from the social partners to encourage employees to delay their withdrawal from the labour force. Another is the promotion of flexibility in respect of withdrawal, paving the way for part-time work and flexible working hours as an attractive alternative to the sudden transition from economic activity to economic inactivity.

However, it seems that those generations close to retirement would simply prefer to withdraw from the labour force. Interestingly, where some form of flexibility in employment prior to withdrawal from the labour force is a preferred option, it is often not possible in the workplaces in question, indicating that the efforts of the social partners to promote this attractive option to retain ageing workers in the workplace is not feeding through to the workplace to the extent that could be desired.

Which factors could encourage employees to remain longer in the labour force than they envisage doing? There are a number of economic, workplace, educational and personal incentives and disincentives to delaying withdrawal from the labour force, but it is clear that no single incentive/disincentive could delay significantly the withdrawal of the generations approaching retirement.

Increasing the age at which early retirement is available and a reduction in working hours could each delay withdrawal, while other initiatives would only delay withdrawal for modest proportions of workers.

The economic incentive of an increasing pension for each year withdrawal is delayed beyond the early retirement age would delay withdrawal from the labour force for a relatively small proportion of the generations. Even the effect on withdrawal behaviour of making early retirement more difficult by increasing the age at which early retirement is available is limited.

Workplace incentives such as a reduction in working hours, aligning the pace of work and employees’ capabilities, and providing different forms of work to match capabilities would only delay withdrawal for small sections of the generations approaching retirement. Support in the workplace is not an unimportant issue.

Clearly, the factors determining the timing and form of withdrawal from the labour force in the future are complex and varied. The research indicates that there is a similar complex and varied set of factors that could influence future decisions about withdrawal. Most striking is the effect – albeit modest – of recent reforms of early retirement and pension schemes. While securing the continued and longer attachment to the labour force of some, the expectation of large proportions is still to retire early.

Early retirement seems to be a solid feature of the labour market, and there is little evidence that this behaviour can be changed easily or speedily, neither by incentives nor by disincentives. At the moment, there appears to be no single (acceptable) policy initiative that could radically change the behaviour of generations over the next 15-20 years. Since the introduction of early retirement schemes, the social partners have spent almost a quarter of a century educating workforces to retire early and to plan for life after retirement. Those efforts have been successful, much to the chagrin of contemporary decision makers concerned about this behaviour. In addition to the entrenched withdrawal behaviour, there is evidence of a lack of interest in retaining older workers in the workplace despite efforts from policy makers to encourage this. Delaying withdrawal from the labour force seems to be unattractive from both the employee’s and the employer’s point of view.

In terms of attitudes and behaviours of those generations retiring over the next 20-30 years, there are a number of interesting conclusions from the research:

attitudes and expectations indicate that early retirement will still be the preferred option, but there is a willingness to continue if conditions are right

contribution is again a key issue for the retiring generations of the future. Life long continued learning is then key to this needing to be able to provide up-skilling and re-skilling not purely in a workplace context but in a familial and community context

unless the social partners can make work more attractive and rewarding in later life, most are geared to early retirement.

2.3 Financial security in later life

Retirement is a complicated concept. It can be regarded as the state in which one withdraws completely and permanently from paid work; or the state in which one begins to receive a pension (state or other); or the (psychological) state in which one regards oneself as retired from (paid) work. Regardless of definition of the concept, the majority of males and females in the UK have retired before the state pension age – two thirds of males and more than half of females have stopped working before the state pension age.

Historically, retirement decisions are influenced by the institutional structures that either encourage or discourage retirement at a particular age (Harper, 2006). An example of the effects of institutional structures in recent times is the introduction of early retirement schemes in many developed economies in the 1970s and 1980s and the subsequent massive loss of older workers from the workplace before state pension age (Ebbinghaus, 2006), as discussed above. According to Banks and Smith (2006), this institutionalisation of the timing of retirement has led to two distinct early retirement groups in the UK based on a wealth parameter. For those with high levels of wealth, early retirement has been facilitated by private, occupational pensions, while for those with low levels of wealth, early retirement is not only at an earlier age, financed by income support or disability benefits, and it is not regarded by individuals themselves as retirement. Clearly these two groups have vastly different levels of financial security and – underlying that security – levels of preparedness.

Studies reveal that the timing of retirement and whether it is complete or partial are determined by an individual’s financial preparedness as they perceive this (for example, Samwick, 1998), although a number of other factors also seem to influence this decision such as health status, labour force status of spouse/partner (Banks and Smith, 2006; Leeson, 2004). Arkani and Gough (2006) provide analyses that also support the link between the timing of retirement and membership of occupational schemes, and given this body of evidence, it is worth noting at this stage that according to data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2003) presented in Banks and Smith (2006), occupational pensions are more common among older male workers. Almost half of females have neither an occupational nor a private pension. Likewise, smaller proportions of females have both types of pension, while the proportion of both males and females born in 1960 or later with occupational pensions is around half.

There is a body of research that underlines the fact that women hitherto face greater financial disadvantage in retirement than their male counterparts (for example, Ginn et al, 2001; Rake, 1999; Olsberg, 2005; Clare, 2004). There are also gender specifics at play in respect of retirement confidence and planning (Joo and Pauwels, 2002). Significantly more males have estimated their financial needs in retirement and it is likely that such initiatives increase the probability of financially preparing for retirement (Joo and Pauwels, 2002).

A recent national general population study (CIPD, 2003) confirms that large numbers of people do not understand their pension schemes, although understanding and awareness seems to be greater among those closer to retirement. There was a strikingly low level of awareness of the cost of financial comfort on retirement. But given this lack of understanding, does it matter what type of pension scheme one has? According to Blake (2000), the answer is “yes” – if you are concerned about your pension! Blake agrees with others (for example, Howse (2004) and Breyer (2001)) that unfunded state pensions schemes are unlikely to be sustainable, basing this belief on demographic imbalances, and counter-arguing instead that funded pension schemes will be able to deliver the pension promise.

The UK is settling into a pensions structure where most of the pension schemes now being established are defined contribution schemes, but these have a number of “alert characteristics” – high charges, considerable dispersion in the performance of investments, and poor value for money on annuities. It is for these reasons that Blake (2000) asserts that when we choose our pension schemes (assuming we indeed have a choice), we have difficult choices to make. While this is an eminently sensible assertion, it is based on a presupposition that we are knowledgeable and critical consumers of the pension schemes market. While Blake (2000) analyses the pros and cons of defined benefit and defined contribution schemes and then goes on to make policy recommendations for government, there is no real comfort or advice for the individual consumer, whom he claims has difficult choices to make. Instead, he cites inadequate pension savings as the greatest impediment to having a decent pension. His recommendation is that governments should ensure sufficient mandatory minimum contributions into a funded scheme while reminding us that the UK mandatory minimum for the second pension is insufficient to provide an adequate pension.

A move to mandatory contributions (in some form) may not be untenable. Data from the HSBC Future of Retirement Global Ageing Survey (Harper and Leeson, 2007, 2008; Leeson, 2008) reveal that in the UK there is some degree of support for raising taxes, reducing state pensions, enforcing additional private savings or increasing retirement age to address the demands of ageing populations. In terms of gender specifics, it is interesting to note that increasing taxes is predominantly a male option, while increasing retirement age is predominantly a female option.

What – apart from available financial resources – influences our preparedness for retirement? Research shows that health is a defining factor in terms of choice of the timing of retirement (Leeson and Harper, 2007, 2008; Leeson, 2006). Even 10 years ago, Sterns (1998) was arguing the emergence of a paradigm shift affecting the way we invest in our future (retirement), but we are still researching to understand the drivers and barriers to retirement planning.

There is evidence too that personality constructs and financial knowledge are significant factors (Hershey and Mowen, 2000), but there is only limited psychological research to investigate pre-retirement, financial-planning decisions. From an economics point of view, on the basis of Poterba (1996), individuals can be grouped according to why they do not prepare for retirement:

• the short-sighted group: they do not save because they are unaware of the value of retirement provision
• the unlucky group: they do not save because they have lower earnings than expected or higher expenses than expected
• the spend-it-now group: they do not save because they have high discount rates and choose to consume while working at the expense of retirement consumption
• the fantasy group: they do not save because they have unrealistic expectations for their retirement income from social benefits, private pensions or other sources and for their own longevity and for their retirement consumption.

This psycho-behaviourial categorisation is confounded by other factors such as lack of education leading to negative attitudes towards saving (Bernheim et al, 1997), an overestimation of the financial robustness of retirement investment (Hershey and Wilson, 1997) and an underestimation of one’s longevity (Walsh et al, 1989). Building on this, Hershey and Mowen (2000) found that self-rated financial knowledge was positively related to perceived financial preparedness, suggesting that training and intervention could encourage financial preparation for later life; a direct relationship between future time perspective and financial preparedness, suggesting that policy messaging, education and training could increase an individual’s future orientation and therefore that individual’s propensity to prepare financially for later life.

Future time perspective receives a deal of attention as far as financial planning is concerned. A number of studies have indicated that the degree of individual orientation towards the future predicts planning and saving. In addition to the cited work by Hersjey and Mowen (2000), work by Lusardi (1999) indicates that pre-retirement a short planning horizon is linked with lower average net worth and expectations in respect of income from personal savings in retirement. Jacobs-Lawson and Hershey (2005) consider the influence of future time perspective, financial literacy and financial risk tolerance on retirement savings behaviours and find that the higher the levels of these three variables the more aggressive the savings profiles.

The evidence is that education and training for retirement would seem to be significant in respect of encouraging and enabling financial preparedness (Lusardi and Mitchell, 2007; NCEE, 2005; Hilgert and Hogarth, 2002; Australian and New Zealand Banking Group, 2005; OECD, 2005; Christelis et al, 2005; Miles, 2004).

Those more financially literate are more likely to have thought about retirement (Lusardi and Mitchell, 2006b) even when other factors are taken into account such as level of (general) education, marital status, retirement status, gender, and ethnicity. The crucial link is that lack of planning equates with lack of saving (Lusardi and Mitchell, 2006a; Lusardi, 1999; Calvert et al, 2005; Kimball and Shumway, 2006; Hilgert et al, 2003).

“Blanket” financial education may not be the answer to preparing for retirement. Moore (2003) found that individuals prefer a personalised approach to financial knowledge provision rather than collective educational initiatives. In the UK, the complexity and incomprehensibility of the pension system prevents people from making rational decisions about their own preparedness needs (Pensions Commission 2004).

According to the Pensions Commission (2005), personal private pension saving (voluntary) rather than increasing – as government would hope and desire – is declining. Of the 34 million persons of working age, almost half (15.3 million) are not contributing to a private pension (either themselves or via a partner).

So, what do we expect in retirement? What can we expect given the experience of present-day generations of retired people? Do we have choices? Are we thinking about retirement?

Evidence from Denmark (Leeson, 2006) suggests that the public debates there over the last 20 years have at least ensured that people are thinking about life after work and they are making choices. Local evidence from Scotland, however, suggests that large proportions of people are still giving little or no thought to retirement (Anderson et al, 2000). Policy makers may find little comfort in economic modeling of consumption, saving and retirement as this indicates that the whole range of individual circumstances come into play (French, 2005; Blau, 1994; Rust and Phelan, 1997).

Whatever, the demographics of the future – as outlined earlier – demand that individuals and governments face some difficult choices in their response to individual and population ageing. Both the Pensions Commission (2005) and Harper and Leeson (2007, 2008) point out that basically, there are four choices for government: increasing savings, raising taxes, reducing state pensions or increasing retirement age; and two for individuals: working longer, and/or increasing savings.

Evidence for the UK suggests a little bit of everything perhaps, but with some interesting pre- and post-retirement specifics.

So should savings for retirement be compulsory? This choice is more likely to be supported by those already in retirement (Harper and Leeson, 2008). Other survey results provide further support for the idea of compulsory savings for retirement (for example, Mintel (2005)). Alarmingly perhaps, support was lower among those not contributing to a pension.

Or should taxes be raised to finance and support the ageing population?

This choice is more likely to be supported by those approaching retirement (Harper and Leeson, 2008). Males are more likely to support this choice.

Or perhaps reducing pensions?

This is the preferred choice for only a small minority of adults both pre- and post-retirement.

Or working longer?

Working longer is the preferred choice of relatively large groups both pre- and post-retirement.

At the extremes of the preparedness spectrum, there is a group of high income earners with attractive private pension schemes adequately prepared financially for retirement, and there is a group entirely dependent on (inadequate) state provision (and family and community support). In between is the major part of the working population with some degree of preparedness but poorly equipped to understand the complexities of pension provision – this group is significantly susceptible to reaching retirement with inadequate financial provision.

This concept seems to receive some support from the Pensions Commission (2004). Those likely to retire with adequate pensions include:

• large proportions of public sector employees
• those with private sector direct benefit schemes.

Low income employees with no private provision would see increased replacement rates for state benefits if a status quo on indexation is maintained, thus protecting this group from pension erosion.

Losers will be people on average and low (but not very low) incomes with no employer pension contribution (Pensions Commission 2005).

What can be expected of future generations and their financial security in later life?

There is considerable political and economic consideration with regard to the intergenerational social contract on which many welfare models depend. In many countries, there is an increasing doubt about the robustness of pensions systems, both public and private, both with regard to the financing of these and with regard to their ability to live up to people’s welfare expectations in old age (Munell, 2002; Clark, 2003; Whiteside, 2002).

Is financial security in old age a myth of welfarism? Is it feasible to expect that universal state pension schemes (state welfarism) can provide this security? How are future generations of retirees reacting to this? Is there potential on the basis of an increased take-up of occupational pension schemes for reduced pressure on the state pension if the latter were made dependent on receipt of occupational pensions? Is there a fear among future generations in respect of their financial security in later life?

From the global ageing survey, it appears in the UK that the fear of not being able to cope financially after retirement is felt by only a relatively small proportion of pre-retirees, and the same is true for post-retirees and their financial fears for the future. Globally, 50% of pre-retirees and 58% of post-retirees are not worried. In the UK, approximately 70% of pre- and post-retirees are not worried.

The proportions of pre-retirees expecting a decline in their standard of living after retirement are modest, as are the proportions of post-retirees who find that their standard of living is worse than it was pre-retirement. Globally, the proportions expecting/experiencing a decline in standard of living are 28/34%, while in UK they are 35/21%.

As the economic climate becomes more tense there is the potential for a breakdown of the social contract between generations and between advantaged and disadvantaged that underpins welfarism. However, there is evidence globally in mature economies that financial disadvantage in later life is not something that is expected although lack of money in later life is something large proportions fear. The UK has a relatively high proportion both pre- and post-retirement fearing not having enough money. Thus, 45% pre-retirement fear not having enough money in old age, and post-retirement this proportion is 41%.

Pressure on state provision seems to be modest from the future generations of retirees (Leeson and Harper, 2008). Globally, 31% pre- and post-retirement feel that governments should bear most of the financial costs of supporting them in retirement. In the UK, the figures are 39% pre-retirement and 33% post-retirement. However, confidence in governments living up to this obligation is lower. In the UK, only 19% feel governments will bear most of the financial costs.

The usual mechanisms of government to support its ageing population, such as raising taxes, reducing state pensions or increasing retirement age are rejected globally while there is some support for some of these measures in the UK.

When given the choice of enforced additional private savings, raising taxes, reducing pensions or increasing retirement age, in the UK 18% pre-retirement feel that governments should initially enforce additional private savings to support and finance their ageing populations. This proportion increases post-retirement to 28%, and males are more inclined than females to recommend this to governments, slightly more so post-retirement. Pre-retirement, increasing taxes is the majority option for supporting ageing populations in the UK with 42% choosing this option followed by increasing retirement age (35%). Only 6% feel that the UK government should reduce pensions to finance and support the ageing population. Increasing taxes is predominantly a male option. Post-retirement, increasing retirement age is the preferred option (40%) followed by enforced additional private savings (28%) and increasing taxes (26%). Only 5% feel that the UK government should reduce pensions. Increasing retirement age is predominantly a female option.

Overall, it seem that UK citizens are saying to governments that they acknowledge the need to finance their old age; that they do not feel confident in the government doing this; and they favour taxation and an increase in retirement age followed by enforced savings as the preferred mechanisms to provide for the ageing population.

So there are some clear messages:

• there is limited apprehension about financial security in later life
• this limited apprehension is not completely and universally supported by the preparedness behaviour of the population
• there is limited expectation of government efforts to provide financial security in later life
• there is an awareness of individual responsibility for financial security in later life
• there is evidence of a psychological block and financial illiteracy in respect of financial preparedness for later life.

2.4 Family, Community and Citizenship

The demographic ageing of industrialised Western societies which has occurred during the 20^th century has affected various areas of society as well as individual behaviour, nowhere more apparent perhaps than in relation to the family (Harper, 2003), where family and social life are subject to pressure and change. Familial and social lives are constantly being transformed, and familial organisation, with kin groups pooling resources and functioning as a single coherent unit, has changed as ideological, economic and social changes have driven control from the family unit towards the individual or towards other social institutions than the family. The kin connection to property and marriage has been destabilised by the move from family- to wage-based employment, which has encouraged individual autonomy in many of these decisions (Waite et al, 2000). Urbanisation and technological change have almost revolutionised communication, social intercourse and entertainment, dramatically undermining the role of the family in this respect. Furthermore, towards the end of the 20^th century, new kin structures emerged: reconstituted or recombinant stepfamilies, ethnic minority families, single-parent families, cohabiting couples, all of which raised questions about individual roles and responsibilities within these new family structures.

In addition, societies are experiencing an ageing of some life-transitions (Harper, 2006), which, when combined with the shift from a high-mortality/high-fertility to a low-mortality/low-fertility society, have significant implications for both family structure and kinship roles (Farkas and Hogan, 1995). As populations age, the child-parent relationship moves from one of dependency to one of an adult relationship. The common experience for many parents and children is moving towards one of around 60 years of joint life, with less than a third of this time spent in a traditional parent/dependent-child relationship (Riley, 1983; Grundy, 1999). Time spent as the daughter of a parent over 65 now exceeds the time spent as the parent of a child under 18 (Watkins et al, 1987), but this should be viewed against the situation that while a high proportion of these persons aged 65 years and over previously were dependent to some degree on others, this is no longer the case. Dependence on children for help with daily living activities is now most likely to occur after age 80 (Ulhenburg, 1995). The growing significance and length of old age and grandparenthood, however, places other and additional demands on the roles and relationships of adult women in particular (Zeilig and Harper, 2000).

As family structures change, an older person in need of familial support may be faced with a complex of potential providers of support, whose familial ties vary considerably, and in this respect the role of reconstituted or step families in caring for older adults is a central issue. There is only limited research, which elucidates these phenomena (Finch and Wallis, 1994; Bornat et al, 1998; Dimmock et al, 2004; Haskey, 1998), but the suggestion is that the complexities of the ensuing relationships do not lend themselves to any particular pattern or structure of care. The dominant care relationship of blood-related daughter for mother, found within non-reconstituted families, does, however, seem to remain central. Whilst there is a growing awareness of the possibilities of looser-knit, divorce-extended families, when it comes to ‘the crunch’ the availability of care will usually depend on access to close ‘blood ties’ (Dimmock et al, 2004).

Demographic ageing has also brought with it an increasing average length of marriage for those marriages not terminated by divorce, and these marriages have been extensively studied (Bengtson et al, 1990). In addition, the child-parent dyad becomes one not of dependency but of mutual adult relationships (Riley, 1983; Grundy, 1999). Family structures have verticalized during the 20^th century (Bengtson et al, 1990; Hagestad, 1986; Dench et al, 1999) leading to intercohortal contraction and an increase in intercohortal extension (Bengtson et al, 1990) with all the implications this may have for late life care.

It is claimed that intergenerational ties in some cases strengthened towards the last decades of the 20^th century (Mendras, 1988; Dirn, 1990). Furthermore, inter-cohortal relations in relation to ageing are quite central to the social contract (Bengtson, 1993), and the question of intergenerational equity in relation to a redistribution of resources is equally central (Guillemard, 1996). Indeed, the whole issue of families and the sociology of families raises widespread interest (Newman, 1999).

Families and their roles and responsibilities have thus been challenged profoundly over the last 100 years, and are increasingly so as family structures have changed. Economic, social and even ideological shifts have shaped and threatened the accepted role of the family, both for the individual and for society.

Most certainly, the definition of what constitutes a family is now more fluid, accommodating numerous combinations of cohabitation forms and sexualities, children and stepchildren. Delayed life transitions such as marriage, birth, and leaving the parental home compress the time and space within which the family is expected to germinate and grow. From being a (lifelong) unit within which reproduction and (economic) production are concentrated, the family as a social-functional unit seems to have a much reduced role to play in the 21st century. Reproduction is at a minimum and production is the responsibility of independent individuals outside the family unit. Female labour force participation rates at all ages are approaching those of males. Dependent children and dependent adults in advanced economies are the responsibility not just of the family but of society, freeing families to some extent of the caring burden, but at the same time removing a function of family life to outside the familial sphere.

However, the changing structure of families in ageing societies does not need to mean that the supportive role of families is decreasing in importance, and in fact in many societies, the family seems to be increasing in importance in people’s lives. Comprehensive studies of the intergenerational supportive role within the family reveal the complex aspects of this phenomenon. The size and density of a social or familial network are not positively linked to support per se. Large, closely-knit families can be sources of intrusiveness, bad advice and conflict as well as support.

Since the 1960s, mean household size in the European Union has decreased in all countries (Hall, 1993) and by the late 20^th century ranged from just over 2 in Denmark to approximately 3.5 in Spain and Ireland. This development has been driven by two primary factors, namely a decline in the number of large households and an increase in the number of single-person households. The former can be related to declining fertility levels while the latter can be related to both an ageing population and the tendency for younger people to choose the single-life style. Behind this simplified statistical picture is a backdrop of complicated patterns of one-parent households, remarriage of adults with children (having their own children), consensual unions (with or without children), and maximum two-generation households.

As early as 1986, the complex changes in families and household structures and the wealth of related behavioural phenomena were summed up in the following (Burnel, 1986):

“All of these changes are associated with the arrival to adulthood of the post-Second World War generation. There seems to be a fundamental change in attitudes to life, which is not caused by political or economic factors peculiar to a region or social background. There would seem to be a major transformation affecting all advanced countries, irrespective of their social and regional structure, and the movement is universal, causes are therefore deep-seated, common to all the Western countries and capable of changing mentalities.”

In historical terms, marriage is the institution that establishes families and provides the human framework within which reproduction begins. However, in true Malthusian fashion, younger people across Europe since the 1960s have been delaying their entry into marriage – though not necessarily into cohabitation – and at the same time marriage rates have been declining. However, perhaps the one single dominant factor driving much of this fertility and marriage related behaviour has been the influx of women into the labour market, bringing in its wake the increased independence of women in partnerships.

It is clear from the above discourse that the family is not a constant phenomenon over time or over different individuals. There are inherent and potentially significant differences with regard to family structure, family size and family function. It is often assumed that older people without children are more disadvantaged with respect to familial support than older people with children, but this simplistic assumption excludes the potential supportive contribution from other members of an individual’s familial and social network (siblings, friends and neighbours, for example). However, the family as an institution may have more than a purely practical supportive function, and its importance may therefore not necessarily be determined by the willingness or capability of family members to provide support in some shape or form.

The Global Ageing Survey reveals that across the globe the family remains strong in defining who we are and we still feel high levels of obligation and responsibility to our family members. Furthermore, the contribution of people in later life to the family is vital.

So in the UK, approximately 70% across the 40-79 year cohorts of GLAS state family as the main thing they think of when they think of who they are, making the family the main factor of personal identification. Our duty towards our families is as manifest as our personal identification with our families. Around 70% of respondents in the UK feel that it is the duty of adults to provide for their parents (in-law) in times of need later in life. In addition, approximately 80 per cent in each cohort feel that it is the duty of a parent to do his/her best for his/her children even at the expense of their own well-being, and around 80% feel that it is the duty of grandparents to be there for their grandchildren in times of difficulty. There is significantly less support for grandparents contributing to the economic security of the family with only 25% of the youngest cohort rising to 47% of the oldest cohort feeling that this should be the case.

Our family commitment also extends to actively supporting and helping family members. Large proportions of the over 50s are indeed providing financial support, practical help and even personal care within the family and the proportions providing are greater than the proportions receiving, indicating a simple positive balance of support in their favour.

In respect of practical support during the previous 6 months, in the UK between 24% of the 70-79 year olds and 49% of the 50-59 year olds have provided support to a relative or friend. The proportions receiving practical support from a relative or friend are more modest ranging from 15% of the 50-69 year olds to 23% of the 70-79 year olds. Between 5% of the 70-79 year olds and 17%of the 40-49 year olds have provided personal care, with 2-4% of the cohorts receiving this form of support.

While there may be an expectation of family involvement and identification, this need not be the case in respect of the wider community, and yet it is this community identification and involvement that in many ways fundamentally defines citizenship – an activity, an involvement beyond the personal and familial.

Community involvement is substantial among the over 50s as we witness the development of the concept of life after retirement towards a time of responsibility, a time of pay-back. In the UK, the organised voluntary contribution to communities from the 40-79 year old cohorts ranges from 30% of the 40-49 year olds to 38% of the 70-79 year olds. In addition, others have been involved (but are not involved at present) in this form of voluntary work, ranging from 17% of the 40-49 year olds to 23% of the 70-79 year olds. The average number of hours per week ranges from 3.5 hours for the 40-49 year olds to 4 hours for the 50-59 year olds to 4.5 hours for the 60-69 year olds and to 5.2 hours for the 70-79 year olds, and in terms of the economic contribution of the voluntary engagement of the two oldest cohorts to the national economy of the UK, these figures correspond to a contribution of almost 18 million hours per week, and more than £4 billion to the UK national economy on an annual basis.

But in addition, there is also evidence from the research of an engagement in a wide variety of activities, both learning activities and activities of a socially interactive nature (Leeson, 2005a; Leeson et al, 2004), but in order to realise the contribution at both the individual and community level, there is a need for skills development provided by late life and lifelong learning.

A number of interesting issues arise from the research in this area.

The family and the broader social network are important factors in defining identity.

Network building blocks are available for most individuals – few have no surviving family or friends. There is a wealth of intergenerational, intrafamilial contact and support both up and down the generations with larger proportions of the over 50s giving than receiving.

Community involvement is widespread and on an impressive scale both in terms of numbers and contribution to the wider economy.

3. Age integration or age segregation?

Let us conclude by considering two (likely) scenarios which will impact not only on the individual and society, but also on lifelong and later life education and training. Basically, we propose two simple scenarios for the UK 2050, which can be regarded as diametrically opposite in respect of the ageing of our population. These are:

1. Age segregation – large proportions of people have continued to retire early. This will in itself, as we have seen with regard to financial preparedness, result in a polarised segment of the population in later life. On the one hand, those who are poorly secured financially and on the other hand, those with adequate, even extremely adequate, pension provision. The unprepared and unsecured group will have no plans and no inclination or resources to contribute to their community or to broader society. They become an embarrassing burden, despised and dismissed by their wealthier peers and by younger generations who see themselves as financing this inactive, non-contributory group who will be in poorer health. They will be subject to age segregation, taking no part in the functioning of society.

The prepared and secure group, however, will have planned their later life (with their partner and family) and as well as being able to enjoy their later life as they wish, they will be responsible and inclined to contribute (pay-back time) overwhelmingly, but not exclusively, in a voluntary context. They will be active and seek out education and training, mostly to fulfil their own desires, and although they too are subject to age segregation, they will not seriously be affected by this.

1. Age integration – over a period of 40 years, citizens have reaped the benefits of programmes for lifelong and later life education and training, empowering them and enabling them to function as full, equal and active citizens in a society which works as a collective while optimising individuality. All generations in 2050 contribute and are responsible – in the workplace, the family, the community.

The programmes which have brought about the change in scenario 2 have been developed from the Danish folk high school tradition (Leeson, 2004).

Danish Folk High Schools:

Danish Folk High Schools are independent, adult boarding schools (although Day High Schools do exist too) offering general subject courses including history, the arts, music, sports, philosophy, theatre, photography etc. There are 83 Folk High Schools of which four are specifically for older people (old age pensioners). The philosophy of the Folk High School is to combine vocational education with personal and social experiences. The duration of courses ranges from one week to 10 months. Students must be over 17.5 years old at the commencement of the course.

The idea of Folk High Schools dates back to 1836 when Grundtvig advocated the establishment of Folk High Schools. A few years prior to this, he had already campaigned for a new kind of school. Grundtvig’s ideas were radical indeed. He envisaged a people’s university where all could learn – civil servants alongside peasants, practitioners and theorists on the same school bench, a true interaction between the elite of society and commoners. Students should through studying history and poetry become aware of themselves as a part of something bigger – the Danish People. In many ways, the first seeds of the Danish welfare state were sewn in Grundtvig’s ideas.

In fact, the first Folk High School opened in 1844 in Roedding in Slesvig-Holsten, which is now a part of Germany. The establishment of Folk High Schools surprisingly pre-dates the free, democratic constitution in Denmark (1849), and by 1851 the Danish State was providing financial support to the schools.

Folk High Schools spread across Denmark but also Norway (1864), Sweden (1868) and Finland (1889) took on the idea.

In Denmark, the development of the Folk High School movement runs parallel with other democratic developments in the country – the co-operative movement (farmers) and the establishment of the Social Democratic Party in 1871 (workers). In just 26 years, the number of Folk High Schools in Denmark had reached 52, rising to 75 by 1890. With such a large number of Folk High Schools across the country, the Association of Danish Folk High Schools was established in 1891 and encompasses agricultural schools too (not surprising in view of the close democratic links with the co-operative movement).

The first Folk High Schools for senior citizens were opened in 1971 when the agricultural schools split from the movement.

With over 100 schools at the beginning of the 1990s, the movement has been hit by a number of factors in the last decade – increasing difficulty in attracting younger people, declining subsidies – and today there are 83 schools according to the Association.

Adult Education Associations:

As mentioned above, numerous local, regional and national adult education associations across the country provide a wide-ranging number of courses.

Let us exemplify this development by considering a single case-study: AOF (Workers’ Education Association).

AOF was established in 1924 by the Danish Social Democratic Party, among others, and on its establishment 56 trade unions immediately joined the cause, so to speak. The first major activity of AOF was a national series of 953 lectures attended by almost 60,000 persons, followed by study groups and workshops and the emergence of evening schools. In 1925, AOF began to receive financial support from the State, and by 1929, AOF had developed from a national to a local movement comprising 90 local associations of which 32 also offered evening school activities.

In 1930, legislation was passed granting state financial support to evening schools and in 1932 it was decided by government that mainstream school facilities be made available to evening schools and study groups under the Adult Education Associations.

There was a boom in participation after 1938 when Holiday Legislation was passed – workers could now take part in courses during their holidays. New legislation on financial support from the State was passed in 1942 and evening high schools were allowed. In the 1950s legislation relating to the education of workplace workers’ representatives opened up a new field of activity.

In the mid 1970s, AOF comprised 175 local associations, and by 1978, over 500,000 persons were participating annually in the courses they were offering.

Adult education in general:

In 2002, 95,000 year-participants took part in public financed adult education courses (a year-participant corresponds to 925 hours of teaching). This indicates a decline in activity over recent years – a decrease of 5% in relation to the 2001 (5000 year-participants). In addition, 30,000 year-participants took part in local authority supported evening school courses (under the Folk Education Legislation). Thus, in 2002, a total of 125,000 year-participants took part in supported adult education courses. There are also private adult education courses available.

It is estimated (Ministry of Education, 2003) that these figures translate to a total of 400,000 persons taking part to some degree in adult education (including vocational training).

Just over 5000 of these year-participants attended a Folk High School – decline of more than 30% since the mid 1990s. This is due to smaller generations of young people, a number of schools lost their support from public funds, plus it has become more difficult for unemployed persons to attend Folk High Schools since legislation from 1996 was introduced.

State, county authority and local authority expenditure in this field in 2002 amounted to 6.4 billion DKK, which corresponds to approximately 10% of the total public expenditure on education (excluding costs of student grants etc). From 1993 to 1998, this expenditure increased by 40%, but from 1998 to 2001 they have declined by 20%.

Generally speaking, the majority of participants are female – for example, 60% of Folk High School students are female. In all types of courses, persons aged 60 years and over constitute less than 20%

Providers of adult education are Folk High Schools, local, regional and national associations, trade unions, agricultural bodies, industry, and private organisations. There are national networks for most of these groupings, which represent the interests of the member providers in relation to local, regional and central governments.

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This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

Childhood and Mass Education

Since the mid twentieth century, a special relationship has been maintained between the life course period termed ‘childhood’ (roughly 4-18 years old) and publicly funded mass education in the UK. In this period, the publicly funded education of children has been understood as a form of social investment that is expected to mature after roughly twenty years as the young enter the labour market, and to continue to yield dividends for a period of roughly forty years as their working lives continue. Educational investment has taken the form of the shaping of children’s daily activities, their supervision and on-going and summary assessment, and the provision of staff (teachers) and facilities (schools and colleges) respectively to lead and house this process. As a result childhood became, and remains, the most intensively governed section of the life course (Rose, 1989).

The dividends of educational investment were expected in the shape of educated adults’ contribution to the well-being of the population as a whole and the maintenance of the popular credibility of the state that organized and synchronised educational investment on behalf of that population. Dividends were expected to take biological, social and economic forms. Educated adults were to bear children and to raise them well in accordance with their physical and psychological needs. Adults who had been through the educational process were expected to be law abiding and to raise their children in accordance with prevalent social norms. Adults were to generate taxable income so that, amongst many other things, the costs of educational investment and subsidies for non-working adults, including the unemployed, the sick and those retired from the workforce, could be met.

Investing in children through education has been key to managing social risk across the life course. The risk of poverty in later life could be reduced by the existence of sufficient numbers of economically active adults. The risk of child neglect could be reduced by state investment in children. The risks of adult criminality and of unemployment could be reduced by good socialisation and preparation for adult life in childhood. The success or failure of this investment scheme rested on a balance between certain demographic factors: mortality rates, birth rates, rates of migration, the presence of a cohort of adults in work, and the ability to finance their own and others’ lives (Borgman, 2005).

Decade by decade, various changes in delivery of, and access to, education have adjusted this basic model to suit policy makers’ changing views of social futures – usually meritocratic, often egalitarian – and to make the preparations thought necessary for predicted economic futures (Jones, 2003; Lee, 2005). By the end of the twentieth century, inequalities of gender and of ethnicity, the consequent waste of human resource and resultant social antagonism had begun to join the range of risks education was supposed to tackle. This meant an increased sensitivity to interactions between gender and ethnicity and the functioning of educational institutions as a driver of social equality and inequality.

Considering education as a form of social investment, it is clear that a significant proportion of UK social investment has long been ‘child-centred’. The latest major turn in UK education policy which has taken place over the last decade has been toward a broader ‘child centred social investment strategy’ as described by Esping Andersen (2002). This strategy is based on a clear set of assumptions about demographic and economic change over the next twenty years. It assumes an ageing population across Europe and increasing global economic competition. Esping Andersen argues that far more needs to be invested in the welfare of children to cope with these changes over the next few decades. Following this strategy over the last decade, UK government has attempted to intervene in family life, women’s employment and children’s experiences from the earliest years in order to defend individuals, families and the state from future threats of unemployment and national economic failure. The claims of educational investment as an organizing principle of state expenditure have been broadened significantly. The following will describe this strategy and its assumptions in greater detail.

A Child Centred Social Investment Strategy

Demographics

For Esping Andersen (2002) demographic change leading toward an ageing European population means that a new model of the welfare state is needed to cope with the challenges of the next few decades. In his view, the link between childhood and mass education is more important than ever. He argues for the central importance of generating cultural, social and cognitive capital through the education of children in any strategy that is designed to reproduce a prosperous, egalitarian Europe throughout the next few decades. He argues that the elimination of child poverty across Europe is a relatively inexpensive and highly cost effective response to emerging challenges. His reasoning will be summarised in the following section.

In the decades following the Second World War, the greatest concentration of poverty risk was amongst the older population. Having lived through two world wars and the worldwide economic collapse of the 1930s, older people had had restricted opportunities for saving. This, coupled with the introduction of mandatory ages of retirement, concentrated poverty risk in the later years of life. Fortunately, in the same period, a post-war population boom had made Europe a relatively youthful continent (Esping Andersen, 2002). Consequently, there was no shortage of young human resources to be passed through the education system, as described above, to pay for pensions. According to Esping Andersen this meant that European social welfare policies of the last half of the 20th century were concentrated on addressing the problems of the elderly and were a relatively successful response to these problems.

The United Nations Population Division (UNPD, 2003) forecasts decreasing birth rates and increasing longevity in ‘more developed’ regions like Europe over the next 40 years. As late as the mid-1970s it was possible to summarise the age profile of European societies with the image of a ‘pyramid’. A broad base of young males was mirrored by a broad base of young females. Both narrowed with age toward a peak at around 80 years old. Current European profiles more closely resemble the dome of the ‘Taj Mahal’ with a pronounced bulge in 50 and 60 year olds overhanging the 0-30s range which narrows as age decreases. By 2025 profiles that more closely resemble a ‘mushroom’ (Borgman, 2005) are expected. There is a clear trend toward more elderly people and fewer young people across Europe. Clearly, as the balance between child, working adult and retired adult changes, there will be implications for the welfare state as whole, and for the nature and purpose of educational investment in particular.

We can expect difficulties in managing the risk of poverty in later life to emerge. Late twentieth century models of social/educational investment always depended on a particular balance between birth and mortality – relatively plentiful youngsters and relatively few dependent elderly – but that balance is being reversed. For Esping Andersen, however, the risks of the coming decades are not confined to the elderly as they were in the late twentieth century. The risks posed by demographic change are joined and inflected by changes in the labour market that are likely to spread the threat of insecurity across generations and along the lines of existing forms of social inequality.

Changing Labour Market

The labour market changes that concern Esping Andersen will be familiar from discussions of the shift from a Fordist production regime, characterised by high start-up costs and high geographical stability, to Post-Fordist production regimes (Harvey, 1989; Lee, 2001). This shift toward post-fordist flexible accumulation (Harvey 1989) or the ‘new economy’ (Esping Andersen, 2002; Arthur, Inkson and Pringle, 1999) involved several interlinked trends that Esping Andersen extrapolates into the future. The decreasing communication and transport costs made available by new communications technology and the containerisation of international goods transportation (Levinson, 2006) meant a decreasing need for manufacturers to rely on any one geographical region for its workforce. The globalisation of the available workforce thus decreased the wages that a relatively unskilled European worker could demand. It also created a demand for a ‘flexible’ workforce of individuals who are able to recognise and respond to emergent and relatively short term employment opportunities.

For Esping Andersen these demographic and economic factors should lead European societies to aim at becoming ‘knowledge societies’. As long as a manufacturing workforce is available at a lower price outside Europe thanks to cheap communications and transport, a sensible strategic response is to create the sort of workforce that can target the opportunities opened up by cheap communications and transport. Ideas, words and numbers are communicated most easily of all. Thus, an education system that can ready children for work in financial, legal and other services and creative industries is needed. I will examine the assumptions underlying this view more critically later. For the moment I will further describe Esping Andersen’s thesis.

Future Workforce

In the light of these changes, what characteristics should a successful future workforce have? They should be highly accomplished users of symbolic systems. They will need to be able to find out about new opportunities and to discover how to make the most of them. If employment is not secure, they will need high levels of self-maintenance skills, such as being able to organise a social support network. As Esping Andersen has it, life chances will depend increasingly on the cultural, social and cognitive capital that citizens can amass.

If we consider the UK’s ageing population alongside the changing global labour market, a range of futures become plausible. First, if today’s children are not made ready to take advantage of the opportunities opened up by low communications and transport costs, the economy as a whole will become less competitive and future tax revenue will decline. This will reduce living standards significantly for all and set close limits on the government’s ability to invest. Second, imagine that only those children who enjoy the privileges of high social class, of living in a prosperous area or of high levels of parental support are equipped with the necessary cultural, social and cognitive capital. It may be that they achieve such success in later life that tax revenues do not decline significantly despite an ageing population. This will, however, be a highly polarised society, one that locks-in privilege and exacerbates inequality. Third, if existing blocks to the development of all children’s cultural, social and cognitive capital can be identified and removed, the promise of the ‘knowledge society’ will become a reality, and European countries, including the UK, will remain prosperous, will be able to cover the costs of an ageing population, and will have the resources to invest so as to sustain their prosperity.

Esping Andersen presents us with a choice between the second and third futures. He offers two reasons to prefer the latter. If we share his egalitarian values, an increasingly unequal future will not be acceptable. Even if we do not share those values, he suggests that high levels of inequality may carry hidden inefficiencies – a limit to the knowledge economy reached when too many lack the skills to consume knowledge products. For Esping Andersen, since children’s levels of cognitive ability are strongly negatively influenced by poverty and by a low level of parental educational achievement, socially inherited under-privilege stands in the way of achieving an economically viable and egalitarian future.

Policy Recommendations

Esping Andersen’s thesis builds a set of policy recommendations to be followed by those European national and regional policy makers who are working toward a prosperous and egalitarian European future. Together these recommendations re-affirm the centrality of the education of children to the management of societal risk. Furthermore, these recommendations broaden the resource claims of educational investment in children beyond school walls into family life, parental workforce participation and into the purpose of social security transfers.

a) Focus investment on children

Given Esping Andersen’s demographic assumption of an ageing society, this focus on the young and especially on the earliest years of life may be surprising. If human resource is ageing, surely more resources should be invested in the potential of older people? His recommendation that childhood be treated as a critical period for intervention rests on two claims: first, that evidence of the high social inheritability of poverty and low educational performance suggests that childhood is a critical period for shaping life courses; and second, that remedial interventions targeted at adults are unlikely to be effective unless these adults developed sufficient social and cognitive skills in childhood to make full use of them.

b) Encourage lone parents to participate in the labour market

Esping Andersen argues that there is a growing polarisation of family life between ‘resource strong double-earner households’ and ‘vulnerable, lone parent and work poor households’ (Esping Andersen, 2002, p29). Lone parents are usually women. Left unchecked this trend will create pockets of on-going and highly stable social exclusion, permanently denying a significant proportion of children the cognitive abilities required to participate in future competition for work. The problem should be addressed at its root through policies that encourage lone parents to participate in the labour market with the proviso that their work does not detract from their ability to care for their children. Participating in the labour market has benefits but also has costs. When considering their opportunities to participate in the labour market, lone parents have to factor in the opportunity costs of working. These include the time and money used up travelling to work, the complexity of child care arrangements and potential loss of social security benefits. Esping Andersen recommends policies that make work pay by reducing these opportunity costs. Such policies would include the provision of good quality, low cost child care and the careful adjustment of social security transfers to eliminate disincentives to work.

c) Eliminate child poverty

Esping Andersen argues that child poverty is associated with inferior life chances and offers evidence that it is strongly associated with an early school leaving age, criminal behaviour, and lower earnings in adulthood. It seems that children from poorer families are much less able to parent effectively, locking poverty into the next generation. If child poverty is not tackled, then a mass of unproductive, ill-educated, potentially criminal adults who are able, at best, to attract only low paid work will be created. Given this, minimising childhood poverty in the present should yield dividends in the future.

Esping Andersen considers two approaches to the elimination of child poverty: via more generous social security transfers, and via mothers’ greater participation in the labour market. Basing his calculations on a range of countries’ existing child poverty rates and degrees of inequality he argues that social security transfers alone could eliminate child poverty at relatively little costs in countries ranging from Denmark to the USA. Eliminating child poverty on a national basis through social security transfers alone would costs 0.01% of Denmark’s gross domestic product (GDP), 0.26% of the UK’s GDP and 0.30 % of USA GDP. Clearly these costs would be reduced even further through the greater activation of lone parents as workers.

Current UK Government Response

Despite some critique (Lister 2006) Esping Andersen’s thesis has been very influential on UK policy making over the last decade. In what follows I will briefly describe two of the initiatives that bear the hallmark of this thesis. I will shortly examine the reliability of the assumptions underlying the thesis and recent UK child-related policy. If we assume for the moment that they are reliable, we still need to know how successful the various initiatives designed to provide for the next few decades have been so far.

Eliminating Child Poverty

In 1999 the then Prime Minister Tony Blair announced a commitment to halve child poverty by 2010 and to eliminate it by 2020. An indication of progress so far can be gleaned from the following. Between 1998 and 2006, 600,000 children were lifted out of poverty. The government target was to lift 850,000 out of poverty by 2004 and 1.7 million by 2010 (Joseph Rowntree Foundation). Child poverty is proving a tough nut to crack.

Improving Early Years Education

The Sure Start programme is designed to provide 3,500 children’s centres offering free integrated early years health and education services targeting deprived areas by 2010. Latest assessments of its effectiveness indicate that in deprived areas with Sure Start Children’s Centres there is less negative parenting amongst parents of three year olds and a better home learning environment, and that three year olds in deprived areas with a Centre also show improvements in social and cognitive capital as compared to those without (NESS, 2008).

Integration of Children’s Services

Building on the Children Act 2004 a programme of multi-agency integration known as Every Child Matters has been drawing health, protection, welfare and education services together at the local authority level and at the level of national accountability. The programme has the following five aims.

• Be healthy
• Stay safe
• Enjoy and achieve
• Make a positive contribution
• Achieve economic well-being.

Re-organising child services on the basis of a holistic view of the child is expected to yield synergies and efficiencies. The child-centred nature of this change is reflected in a new commitment to seek out and respond to children’s own points of view. This is understood both as a matter of good democratic practice and as an opportunity for children to gain early experience of citizenship.

It is clear that some progress is being made in the direction of improving the levels of cultural, social and cognitive capital of the UK workforce of the next few decades. Whether this progress will continue depends on many factors including possible changes of UK Government and policy, and the continued availability of funds for investment. Whether the progress made so far is enough to meet the challenges Esping Andersen sets out time will tell.

Current Assumptions

Esping Andersen’s thesis and the policies influenced by it are based on the extrapolation of a number of recent trends.

• Ageing European Population
• Little change in UK immigration policy
• Low transport costs

The containerisation of international goods shipping has reduced the costs of international trade by increasing efficiency and reliability. This has been a crucial factor in the globalisation of the labour market that underpins the ‘knowledge society’ thesis.

• Ease of communications

Technological developments such as the internet, along with falling costs of computing and the rapid building of communications infrastructure (cable and satellite), mean that the last two decades have seen great increases in available bandwidth and reliability of communications.

• Concentration of manufacture in emerging economies

Decreasing transport costs mean that China and other emerging nations have had the opportunity to develop their manufacturing base and to relate to the USA and Europe as consumers.

Section 2: Trends and Signals

As noted throughout the above, current UK policy is building on foundations laid a decade ago. Current cohorts of school children who will form the bulk of the UK workforce for the next few decades are being prepared for one of yesterday’s futures. Given the scale of the UK public education system a lag like this is inevitable. But are there significant differences between yesterday’s and today’s plausible futures that might lead us to question existing strategies? The following is a survey of trends and signals that may test current operating assumptions.

‘Majority world’ demographic change

The UNPD (2002) median projection forecasts an ageing world population over the next 40 years. However, areas with different levels of development differ significantly in the timing and scale of their contribution to global ageing. More developed regions, including the UK, are already experiencing a relative decline in children and young people. This trend will continue till 2050. Less developed regions, including India and China, will not experience a relative decline in children and young people till roughly 2050. Least developed regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, will continue to have a roughly pyramid-shaped aged profile until 2050.

The availability of children and young adults for education and training will track West over the next few decades. If the availability of children is a comparative advantage for a region, then the UK is currently losing that advantage while India and China gain it. Their advantage is short-lived, lasting only 30 years according to projections. Within that time-frame sub-Saharan Africa gains a competitive potential.

Majority world educational development

Lloyd and Turkeltaub (2006) argue that Russia and Brazil’s reliance on booming commodity prices is distracting them from making the sort of educational investments that China and India are currently making. China and India are competing strongly with the West for cognitive capital. Signals include China’s ongoing University building programme and the growth of IT industries in India.

Peak Oil

This phrase does not indicate a cliff-edge collapse of world energy resources but the observation that at some point in the near future the rate at which liquid energy supplies can be brought to market will begin to decline. The date of peak oil is hotly disputed, as is the relative power of various factors in speeding its arrival (absolute quantity of oil in the ground, economic viability of exploration/drilling, technical limitations) but liquid energy is set to become more expensive over the next few decades (Deffeyes, 2006). How rapid this price rise will be depends on many factors including demand.

Climate Change

According to Abatzoglou et al (2007), carbon dioxide levels are currently at 385 parts per million (ppm), over 100 ppm higher today than before the Industrial Revolution. It is likely that levels will continue to rise to between 600ppm and 1000ppm by 2100. The view of the International Panel on Climate Change in 2007 was that this will translate into an increase in the global average surface temperature of 1.8-4.0 degrees centigrade.

The impact of climate change by 2050 is very difficult to forecast, but a global increase in extreme weather events such as flood, drought and heatwave is likely, along with a marked rise in sea levels. Given that many major cities are coastal ports and given that ports are key nodes in international trade, this is a significant threat to human and economic security. Current expectations are that the poorest will suffer the most from climate change. DiMento et al (2007) estimate that world economic output will be reduced by 1% by 2100. This figure may seem comfortingly low but Matthew (2007) estimates that one fifth of humans survive on 1% of the world’s wealth. Arguably, war and unrest brought about by climate change are already breaking out in certain vulnerable areas.

The UK is far from immune from direct consequences of climate change. Rapid changes in seasonality – badly timed rainfall and cold or lengthening of warm periods – threaten crop yield and will alter human and livestock disease profiles. Abrupt climate change in the UK is a real possibility. Increased fresh water run-off from Siberia into the Arctic Ocean may bring about the sudden cessation of Gulf Stream circulation, thereby making the UK a much colder country (Abatzogolou et al, 2007).

Finance and Investment

At the time of writing, sums in the region of hundreds of billions of US dollars are being promised by governments to save the US, UK and European banking sector from collapse. A proportion of these sums dependent on the precise nature of the deals made will need to be paid for by the tax payers of the future. It is unclear how many generations of tax payers will be involved. The money is needed because banks no longer trust each other to be able to repay debts, so are unwilling to lend each other money. It seems that a credit ‘bubble’ formed over the last decade as regulatory change allowed historically high credit/capital leverage ratios, and increasing levels of cognitive capital enabled financial firms first to disguise and then to trade bad debt (Blackburn, 2006).

These events are relevant here for two reasons. First, the UK educational policy framework was established during a credit boom. Second, the aftermath of the current credit crisis is likely to alter our global economic expectations for the next few decades.

Section 3: Emergent Issues

Current policy makes good sense if we accept the assumptions on which it is based. An ageing population and increasingly competitive labour market with little space for the low-skilled suggest that we should focus resources on enabling children to compete with their global peers for financial resources. If work associated with manufacturing will no longer provide enough pay, then work that calls for high levels of social and cognitive capital should be targeted. If certain sectors of the population are blocked from developing sufficient social and cognitive capital, then those blocks should be removed. This section will first revisit those assumptions in the light of the new trends and signals described in Section 2. Does today’s future differ from yesterday’s to such a degree or in such ways as to cast doubt on current policy? I will then draw up a set of issues that are likely to become significant and controversial as current policy meets those new trends.

Trends and Signals: implications for current policy

The generation and distribution of social and cognitive capital has long been the core purpose of mass education in the UK. In lives of the past century when individual opportunities were tightly defined by conventional codes of class identity and were protected and contained by the nation state, both the generation and distribution of these capital forms was highly selective. Formal and informal biases of class, sex and ethnicity had a great influence on educational outcomes. They still do, but current policy works hard to disrupt codes of class, ethnic and gender identity so as to generalise access to social and cognitive capital because it takes the view that the nation state can no longer contain and protect. From a 20th century perspective the demands of current policy are quite radical: clearly, women in general should work and mothers also need to work. It is most important of all that mothers who are lone parents should work. All this with the aim of maximising the quantity and distribution of children’s social and cognitive capital. Does it still make sense a decade on?

‘Majority world’ demographic change and educational development

There is a tendency to think of future generations of relatively healthy older people as an economic problem rather than as an economic opportunity. Even as Europe ages over the next few decades, less developed regions remain young. UK policy examined in this document is based on the potential of the young rather than the abilities of the mature. That potential is clearly not the UK’s strongest suit. Are greater opportunities for ‘lifelong learning’ being overlooked?

There is a tendency to formulate policy that targets only the UK population even as it is predicated on the changing powers and significance of the nation state. Many countries in less developed regions have an abundance of youngsters. Least developed regions (sub-Saharan Africa) are set to leapfrog less developed regions in terms of the availability of young human resources within 40 years. Varieties of English are spoken worldwide. Cheap IT solutions inspired by the MIT ‘one laptop per child’ project are becoming available. Should UK educational investment ignore national boundaries in the near future? If it did, to the extent that human development is a non-zero sum game, it might benefit economically from the development of human social and cognitive capital worldwide.

Peak Oil

It is likely that peak oil will be reached during the next forty years. Currently the international trade in goods that supports a large proportion of the world economy is based on liquid energy. The world economy over the last decade involved the transfer of capital and mass production from the West to China and the transfer of goods and debt from China to the West setting the conditions in which current child-related policies makes sense. Historically, oil prices have eased these transfers. Even if a suitable alternative to oil can be developed, there may be a lag in its introduction, thereby boosting energy prices. UK export of mass production and manufacturing jobs may not remain economically optimal over the next forty years.

Climate Change

Climate stress and food and water shortages may increasingly motivate migration to the UK. Climate-based armed conflict may add to their numbers. Of European Union countries, Greece, Spain and Italy are currently most at risk. Given freedom of movement within EU borders and depending on the severity of effects, the next few decades may see increases in seasonal migration from Southern to Northern Europe, permanent migration in the same direction and/or a combination of the two. This will tend to concentrate Europe’s young in the North. Political controversy over educational resources would result in the requirement for new arrangements for financing education across Europe. Waves of migration bring the pedagogical challenge of linguistic diversity. The African continent is already a major source of immigration into the UK. It may be that the response to increased migration is a strengthening of borders at the European level and a tightening of entry criteria. Whether or not that road is taken, the UK will see an increase in numbers of immigrant children who have experience of warfare. Standards of provision for their psychological assessment and care will need to be raised.

Finance and Educational Culture

Over the last decade a generation of financial sector workers equipped with high levels of social and cognitive capital have been flexible enough in their outlook and working practices to find ways to accumulate capital through trade in disguised bad debt. Writing just as a resultant inter-bank lending crisis threatens the UK banking system, share values and pensions and the rest of the economy, it seems clear that the emphasis on personal flexibility and the capitalization of human relationships (social capital), and thought and creativity (cognitive capital) that informs current policy reflect the deregulated boom economy that may now be drawing to a close (Fukuyama, 2008). In the coming years a broader range of concepts of personal worth and human development may become attractive. Policy makers’ anxieties about performance (of government and of children) have meant that UK education has become a very tightly run ship over the last decade. There has been popular criticism to the effect that targets and performance indicators have stifled the education system’s ability to foster curiosity, independence and creativity in learners. Right or wrong, this view is likely to gain strength from the economic crisis.

Life course and investment

It is unclear just how deep and lasting the UK economic recession will be but there is a distinct possibility that it will exert downward pressure on UK public spending. Recent falls in share values will affect the holdings of pension funds and intensify anxieties about poverty in later life. Together these factors suggest a near future return to the low educational investment levels of the 1980s.

Emergent Controversy

Is childhood ’special’?

Esping Andersen (2002) discounts the significance of future inter-generational contests for public resource. His estimates of the low cost of eliminating child poverty help him do this. However, current policy may not be successful in generating a competitive workforce for the next 40 years. Chinese and Indian cognitive capital may outstrip our own, diminishing UK GDP. New factors, such as medical developments and persistently sluggish stock markets, may add to the public cost of ageing. Immigration may not supplement the UK’s human resources sufficiently. If any or all of these possibilities occur, a resource contest may develop between the need to boost and lengthen productivity of existing workforce and the need to invest in children. The long term strength of the UK economy will depend in part on whether, as Esping Andersen argues, childhood is an especially wise site for investment in human potential.

Why did such a strong relationship form between publicly funded education and children under 18 rather than any other section of the life course? The full implications of this question are too complex for the present paper to investigate fully. The following is a range of hypotheses. Which are correct and how they interact may have direct implications for how we should respond to education challenges over the next 40 years.

Investment and time

Children are a particularly wise site of investment in human potential for two reasons:

• The earlier the investment is made, the longer dividends will be paid out
• The earlier the investment is made, bearing in mind that advantage accrues advantage, the greater compound interest effects will be.

Childhood in society

Childhood has become the principle site of investment in human potential in modern societies because:

• With relatively little social autonomy, children have long presented a soft target for government
• Concentration of behavioural control of young people is consistent with culturally available notions of dependence, independence and maturity

Maturation and psychological development

Children are a particularly wise site of investment in human potential because:

• Children are especially open to positive and negative influences for reasons of developmental psychology
• Childhood is critical to social innovation for reasons of developmental psychology

References

Abatzogolou, J., DiMento, J., Doughman, P. and Nespor, S. (2007) Climate Change Effects: Global and local views. In: DiMento, J. and Doughman, P. Climate Change: What it means for us, our children and our grandchildren. Cambridge, MA., MIT Press.

Arthur, M.B., Inkson, K. and Pringle, J.K. (1999) The Boundary-less Career: A new employment principle for a new organizational era. New York, Oxford University Press.

Blackburn, R. (2006) Finance and the Fourth Dimension. New Left Review, 39, pp.39-70.

Borgman, C. (2005) Social Security Risk and Demographics. Berlin, Springer-Verlag.

Deffeyes, K. (2006) Hubbert’s Peak: The impending world oil shortage. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

DiMento, J. and Doughman, P. (2007) Climate Change: What it means for us, our children and our grandchildren. In: DiMento, J. and Doughman, P. Climate Change: What it means for us, our children and our grandchildren. Cambridge, MA., MIT Press.

Esping Andersen, G. ed. (2002) Why We Need a New Welfare State. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Post-Modernity. Oxford, Blackwell.

Jones, K. (2003) Education in Britain: 1944 to the present. Cambridge, Polity Press.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Available from www.jrf.org.uk

Lee, N.M. (2001) Childhood and Society: Growing up in an age of uncertainty. Maidenhead. Open University Press.

Lee, N.M. (2005) Childhood and Human Value: Development, separation and separability. Maidenhead, Open University Press.

Levinson (2006) The Box: How the shipping container made the world smaller and the world economy bigger. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Lister, R. (2006) Children (but not women) first: New Labour, child welfare and gender. Critical Social Policy, 26 (2), pp.315-335

Lloyd, J. and Turkeltaub, A. (2006) Financial Times. December 4^th

Matthew, R. (2007) Climate Change and Human Security. In: DiMento, J. and Doughman, P. Climate Change: What it means for us, our children and our grandchildren. Cambridge, MA., MIT Press.

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Rose, N. (1989) Governing the Soul. London, Routledge.

p11 The world economy over the last decade involved

Levinson (2006) The Box: How the shipping container made the world smaller and the world economy bigger. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

In the last few decades, the population of Britain has experienced a steady increase which can be attributed primarily to net migration and the declining number of deaths rather than a rising number of births (Office for National Statistics, 2008). With the UK facing a future of the ageing structure shifting to the right, questions naturally rise about the organization of society, the provision of social services and the adjustment of the labour force. Amongst those, the possible role of ethnicity in mitigating the negative effects of the demographic change occupies a primary focus.

Several indications exist how ethnic minority groups may have a beneficial effect upon Britain’s ageing population. First, minorities frequently have a larger number of dependent children in the household than the UK-born White (Office for National Statistics, 2008). Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that the delaying of family formation and childbirth characteristic of White British households would affect Asian migrant or Asian British households in the same magnitude (Modood et al, 1997). In this way, it could be expected that the importance of ethnic households for the correction of the downward trends in the number of births would become more pronounced in the future.

Next, the overall ageing of the British population would continue to create job vacancies in all sectors and especially in low-skilled manual work. Unlike skilled work in which the impact of the demographic change can be softened by adult and life-long training schemes and longevity of the employees, unskilled and low-skilled work, with its dependence upon physical conditions, is bound to receive a hard blow. It could be argued that low-skilled jobs would become more and more mechanized, or disappear in certain industries, yet recent research shows that complete substitution of manual labour is hard to envisage in the next 40 years (Handel, 2003). Furthermore, in sectors such as health and social services shortages of skilled labour are felt even now and these vacancies are primarily filled by immigrants. For example, according to the Learning and Skills Council, 679,000 vacancies in health and social work, business services, hotels, catering, and construction were available in 2003 (Selective Admission: Making Migration Work, 2004).

These prospects bring to the forefront the issues of the integration and the successful incorporation of ethnic minority groups – both first and second generation ones. This paper will examine the progress achieved in this direction, as well as commenting on undergoing and possible future changes in the organization of ethnic groups in Britain. This paper will also strive to convey the need for long-term programmes to resolve the gaps between ethnic minorities and UK-born Whites.

The first half of the paper will present the laws governing the processes of immigration and naturalization and will dwell on some characteristic patterns in family structure and labour market performance of the ethnic minority groups in Britain. It will show that segregation continues to operate and that despite the existence of extensive anti-discrimination legislation the labour market performance of the majority and minority groups is still quite divergent even for second generation minority members educated in Britain.

The second half of this paper (sections Social Resources and Host Country Institutions, and the Europeanisation of the Migration Waves) will introduce new evidence of the differentiating availability of social resources on the part of ethnic minority groups and their impact upon their labour market trajectories. The role of host country institutions in facilitating minority members and securing their incorporation will also be discussed and possible future developments will be outlined. In addition, some new research on the latest migration flows – the increasing share of White migrants in the post-1990s migration waves – and the change in societal perceptions and attitudes will be discussed. Finally, some predictions for the future of British minority groups and their labour market inclusion will be offered. Thus, the present paper will give some insight into the ongoing changes within Britain’s ethnic groups and the challenges that might be faced by them in a future of rapid demographic transitions.

Ethnicity in Britain

According to the 2001 Census, the majority of the UK population were White (92%). The remaining 4.6 million people belonged to different ethnic groups. Amongst those, Indians were the largest community followed by Pakistanis, people of Mixed Ethnicity, Black Caribbeans, Black Africans and Bangladeshis. Around half of the non-White population were Asians of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin (Office for National Statistics, 2008).

Table 1: Population of the United Kingdom: by ethnic group, April 2001

Source: Office for National Statistics, 2008

The ethnic composition of Britain thus reflects the strong links between Britain and its former colonies and areas of influence and interest, nowadays known as the British Commonwealth – New Commonwealth and Old Commonwealth countries³ inclusive.

Immigration and naturalisation laws

One of the main reasons for the population growth in Britain as already stated is net migration. In mid-2007, the population of the United Kingdom was estimated to be 60,975,000 (Office for National Statistics, 2008). In comparison with 2006, an increase of 388,000 was witnessed which equalled approximately 1,000 people a day. Net migration rather than natural change is responsible for this boom in population growth. For example, in 2002 net migration accounted for more than 70% of the total population change (Office for National Statistics, 2008). Therefore, it is of great importance to understand the operation of the immigration system and its supply and demand sides.

Graph 1: Comparison between the shares of Natural Change and Net Migration in the UK Population Change

Source: Office for National Statistics, 2008.

The main routes of migration to Britain are labour migration, family reunion and asylum. Control over the flow of labour migrants to the UK has been primarily exercised through the Work Permit System. Work permits were first introduced in 1919 to restrict the entry of Non-Commonwealth migrants, but with the enactment of the 1971 Immigration Act they became obligatory for all foreign workers from outside the European Economic Community. The latter act was aimed at curbing the increasing number of Black and Asian Commonwealth migrants. The system has undergone continuous change in the Acts⁴ following the 1971 Immigration Act to meet the shortages of labour in certain sectors such as hospitality and food processing, and has become increasingly orientated towards the facilitation of the entry of highly-skilled migrants.

The current Managed Migration policies of the British Government are best reflected in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, 2002. For example, apart from the main work permit scheme for skilled migrants, the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) was introduced in 2002 which allows workers to move to the UK without having prior job offers. Low-skilled and semi-skilled workers have been managed by the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Scheme (SAWS); the au-pair scheme, officially a cultural exchange scheme rather than a labour immigration programme; the domestic worker scheme for domestic workers who travel to the UK with their employers, and the Sector Based Scheme⁵ (SBS) which allows UK employers to recruit a limited number of workers to fill vacancies in particular sectors (Ruhs, 2006). All work permit holders are invited to apply for an indefinite period of settlement in the UK after five years. Self-employed entrepreneurs have not been under the obligation to apply for a work permit.

Control has certainly tightened over family migration as well. The 1971 Immigration Act put severe restrictions upon family reunification and chain migration. Different regulations⁶ have also been implemented to lower the number of other dependents, and to limit family migration only to spouses and children (Berkeley et al, 2005).

In contrast, the number of asylum seekers in the UK started growing in the 1990s. The trend holds for the rest of Northern Europe with a high number of asylum seekers settling in Germany and the Netherlands as well. A further increase was witnessed between 1999 and 2002, and in 2002 the number of asylum seekers in Britain peaked to 84,100 (Home Office Research and Statistics Department, 2007). Subsequently, there has been a decrease in the number of asylum seekers due to the stricter regulations of the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act. Unlike labour migrants, asylum seekers benefit from facilitated access to state-provided support and accommodation, and there are no restrictions on their period of stay (Gardner, 2006).

On the whole, British governments have moved over the years towards the imposition of more severe restrictions upon all channels of migration. A period of ‘leniency’ has always been followed by a period of tightening of the rules: consider the great number of refugee applications in 2000-2001 and consequential introduction of new restrictions upon refugee entry in 2002. At the same time, no real drop in the number of incoming migrants has been witnessed (Heath and Cheung, 2007), as vacancies within the economy clearly exist and hence the demand remains for migrant labour. That the idea of the integration of migrants is becoming more and more part of the political discourse is evident in the change of legislation to facilitate highly-skilled migrants or migrants who have received British education and have higher awareness of British culture (and in this way will constitute an easily assimilated pool of labour 20 years from now). In contrast, restrictions have been imposed upon low-skilled labour migrants with the introduction of sector-based quotas and the seasonal workers scheme although these vacancies continue to constitute the primary pull of migrants to the UK (Ruhs, 2006).

Many of the latter vacancies are advertised as only permanent openings. The question of how many of the migrants move to another job after the expiration of their contract or reside illegally in the UK, however, remains unanswered. This is an issue of great speculation. After the enlargement of the EU in 2004 and the underestimation of the migration flows from the new EU10 countries, the British media has become more and more focused on migration and problems associated with housing shortages, labour market competition and crime, although the link between the latter and international migration has been only spurious (The Guardian, 2008). Thus, fluctuations in public opinion are likely to arise in the future as well and will depend very much on the group size, level of visibility and integration of the migrants, especially during times of harsh economic conditions. We could assume that in the next 40 to 60 years the understanding of other cultures and increased opportunities for mobility will facilitate the integration of migrants. Yet, the visibility of ethnic groups will not necessarily disappear and if shortages of labour continue to dominate in unskilled and low-skilled jobs, the migrants filling them will not necessarily be drawn from the upper tail of the skill distribution in their countries of origin. This issue will be discussed in greater length in the second section of this paper.

Naturalization

With the 1981 Naturalization Act in operation, children of immigrants born in Britain are no longer automatically British citizens unless their parents are British citizens. Immigrants who have resided in the UK for more than six years can apply for naturalization (only three years should be spent in the UK before application if the applicant’s spouse is a UK citizen).

Ethnic minority households

The Census showed that three quarters (74% per cent) of Bangldeshi households followed by 66% of Pakistani and 50% of Indian households contained at least one dependent child. In comparison, the proportion for British-born White households was 28% (Office for National Statistics, 2008).

Overall, Asian households registered the highest proportion of married couples under pension age as well as the largest proportion of more than one family with dependent children living together. Only 2% of all household in Britain could be classified in that category, whereas the percentage amongst Bangladeshis was 17%.

The level of segregation amongst the ethnic minority communities in Britain is certainly highest amongst South Asians (Modood et al, 1997) and it has been associated with the existence of cultural, linguistic, religious and aspirational differences from the mainstream institutions on the part of South Asians (Simpson, 2004). Self-segregation, however, seems a myth as Census data showed that the growing number of South Asians in certain areas can be attributed to natural growth and not to movement of South Asian residents towards areas of South Asian concentration (Simpson, 2004). Nevertheless, the issue of segregation will always present a problem since, among other reasons, the increasing concentration of minority members in certain areas can put severe constraints upon housing and the provision of social services; and thus further tilt the equality in services, resources and employment between the majority and the minorities.

Labour market performance

An important aspect and evidence for the successful integration of ethnic minority groups is parity in terms of wage and work opportunities between the minorities and the native majority. The demographic changes in the British population and the need for younger workers are likely to further push towards the closing of the existing gaps. Whether that happens easily, however, is a totally different question. In this section, the progress made in the last few decades within the enactment of stringent anti-discrimination laws will be overviewed and some areas of major concern will be highlighted.

It is generally believed that in comparison with the 1960s the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by convergence of the economic profiles of the ethnic minority groups and the White British workforce (Ignaski and Payne, 1996). The immigrants’ labour market performance seemed to improve perhaps with the acquisition of human capital (Fielding, 1995); the arrival of better qualified migrants drawn from the upper tail distribution of the human capital in their home countries (Bell, 1997); the introduction of a series of anti-discrimination laws, and/or simply the nature of the labour market which registered economic expansion (Bell, 1997). Some researchers question, however, these optimistic findings (Modood et al, 1997), arguing that they were based on aggregate data that did not distinguish between first and second generation minority members and consecutively overstated the declining trend in ethnic minority disadvantage. This is to say that ethnic minorities in the 1980s and early 1990s compared to the 1960s might have been taking better jobs, but they were still doing so to a lesser extent than White people with the same qualifications (Modood et al, 1997).

Even if there was a positive trend in the economic profile of minority groups in Britain in the 1980s, it has certainly reversed by the mid-1990s. The findings of the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities carried out in 1994 showed that Caribbeans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis suffered substantial employment and earnings disadvantages with almost two-thirds of male respondents from these groups concentrated into manual jobs. In comparison half of the Indians, and two thirds of Chinese men were in non-manual work (Modood et al, 1997). The good representation of Chinese and South Asians, particularly Indians, in professional, managerial and employers position at the time (the 1990s) has been largely attributed to the high rate of self-employment amongst these groups (Clark and Drinkwater, 1998).

Whether integration works very much depends on the performance of second generation minority members in the labour market. The offspring raised in the host country are assumed to be doing better than their parents and to have reached parity with Whites (Chiswick, 1978). Various studies distinguish between the two generations and explore this assumption with British survey data. Simpson et al (2006), comparing the 1991 and 2001 Censuses, found that the net disadvantage of ethnic minorities in the labour market has become greater for men born in the UK. For example, unemployment amongst unqualified men in their thirties was 16% for Pakistanis born overseas, a little more than the unemployment for unqualified White males, but for Pakistanis born in the United Kingdom, it was 25%. Heath and Cheung (2006) using a cumulated sample of the General Household Survey 1979-1999 and 1992-1997 LFS datasets also reached the conclusion that in terms of avoiding unemployment, the ethnic disadvantage was stronger in the second generation rather than the first one. In their study, the disadvantage was highest for Black Caribbeans and Pakistanis. On the other hand, in terms of accessing professional and managerial positions, the ethnic disadvantage was sharply reduced in the second generation and in the case of Black Caribbeans and Indians it became insignificant (Leslie et al, 1998; Heath and Cheung, 2006).

Unfortunately due to data limitations, few studies simultaneously offer control for educational attainment and knowledge of English. An exception is an article by Dustmann and Fabbri (2000)⁷ who found that English fluency reduced the likelihood of unemployment and the earnings differentials between ethnic minorities and Whites. It is nevertheless hard to believe that lack of language proficiency can solely explain the aforementioned patterns of disadvantage as Caribbean migrants arrive with a good knowledge of English (Heath and Yu, 2005), and second generation respondents have been educated in the British system. In the study by Berthoud (2000), the members of the African minority group stayed longer in education than the respective UK-born White and Black Caribbean groups; however, their unemployment and earnings prospects were similar to those of Black Caribbeans.

One of the explanations most commonly associated with the existence of the divide described above is discrimination.

Several steps have been undertaken since the 1950s to establish equal treatment of all ethnic groups in the British labour market. First, the 1965 Race Relations Act banned ethnic discrimination at public places and was followed by the 1968 Race Relations Act which ensured that it was unlawful to discriminate on grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins in recruitment and terms and conditions of employment (Layton-Henry, 1984). This definition of discrimination was extended in the 1976 Race Relations Act to cover forms of implicit discrimination in which there is absence of deliberate intention to discriminate but employers’ practices still put certain ethnic groups at disadvantage (Heath and Yu, 2005). More recently, the Race Relations Act 2000 was instituted to maintain the provisions of the previous act and to encourage public authorities to fight discrimination. Nevertheless, as will be highlighted, field experiments and attitudinal studies indicate that both indirect and direct discrimination continues to shape the labour market outcomes of minority members in Britain.

The Home Office Citizenship Survey, for example, has registered a steady increase in the perception of prejudice and discrimination in the British society from 2003 to 2005 (Home Office Citizenship Survey, 2003, 2005). Arguably, however, the White British population does not exhibit higher levels of prejudice towards a particular Commonwealth group. Waters (1999), comparing the US and the UK, claimed that to be ‘black‘ in Britain entails that the person is simply ‘non-white’ and there is no ethnic hierarchy as observed in the US. However, the evidence in favour of the reduction of the racial distinctions to ‘whites’ versus ‘non-whites’ in the British case is not exemplary strong. The field experiments conducted in the UK on which we can rely for some insight into the operation of discrimination in the hiring process are outdated and have some serious flaws. The majority of them do not distinguish between the different ethnic minority communities, often grouping West Indian and Asian testers under the term of ‘black applicants’ or ‘coloured’ applicants (Firth, 1981). Consider the generality of the evidence provided by the 1966 Political and Economic Planning (PEP) study which found that when comparing ‘coloured’ applicants (presumably Black Caribbeans, Indians or Pakistanis) and White migrant applicants, the latter experienced much less disadvantage (Daniel, 1968). Jowell and Prescott-Clarke (1970) obtained similar results for white-collar jobs. More recently, Hoque and Noon (1999) claimed that there is little discrimination against Asians in big companies but most of their fake applicants had Hindu-sounding names implying that they belonged to the Indian minority group which renders the extension of Hoque and Noon’s results to the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities impossible. It is true that those studies distinguishing between Black Caribbeans and Asians usually have registered the same level of prejudice against both groups (Brown and Gay, 1994) or a slightly higher level of prejudice against Black Caribbeans (McIntosh and Smith, 1974). Yet, better up-to-date data⁸ is needed with detailed ethnic groupings, as so far the conclusion that British-born Whites do not discriminate against a specific migrant group relies on a data that does not make a very clear initial distinction between the minority groups in Britain.

Attitudinal studies and self-reported feelings of discrimination perhaps do not provide as good systematic evidence of discrimination in the employment process as field experiments but they can attest to existent prejudices. In the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities, Bangladeshis and Asians reported lower feelings of discrimination, while members of the Black group especially Black Caribbeans had higher levels of self-reported discrimination: over a quarter of the Caribbeans believed that they had been refused a job on racial grounds (Modood et al, 1997). Since there is a direct negative correlation between feelings of discrimination and trust in institutions (Home Office Citizenship Survey, 2005) and for Black Caribbeans the levels of the latter are usually low (Berthoud, 2000), it is still unclear whether these statistics reflect the true levels of discrimination in the host country or simply perceptions and beliefs of it.

Clearly, over the last few decades, despite the development of extensive anti-discrimination legislation, the ethnic minority groups have been exposed to labour market penalties, and parity with native Whites has not been achieved. Moreover, there are some serious gaps in our knowledge of discrimination in the British labour market that must be filled before any specific strategies for the labour market integration of minority groups are adopted. Indeed, a close monitoring of the level of discrimination will be in order if a more homogenous and equal labour market is to be uncovered in the next 20 years.

The next section of this paper will dwell in detail on new research which tries to throw light on ethnic penalties¹⁰ and possible future developments that may present yet another range of challenges to the ethnic organization of the British society.

Social resources and host country institutions

The second half of this paper focuses on some new research pointing out to the challenges in resolving the gap between UK-born Whites and minority members, and the steps that can be undertaken to ensure the achievment of parity. Researchers believe that overt discrimination¹⁰ may not be the only reason for the penalized position of minority groups in Britain. Ethnic minority members might simply lack the resources and the social networks to gain profitable information about vacancies and obtain those (Peterson et al, 2000). Therefore, before examining the issue of whether an employer hires an individual of ethnic minority origin and on what terms, attention should be paid to the question of whether the ethnic minority member has even heard about the job due to his/her limited social resources.

In my doctoral research which uses the job search behaviour of ethnic minority members in Britain as a proxy for the social resources¹¹ available to them, I find that there is a distinct divide between the members of the Black group and South Asians in the use of social ties which is more pronounced in the first generation than in the second. South Asians rely more on social ties, all things considered. Nevertheless, the indication that when social ties have been used in the second generation, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are more unlikely to exit unemployment than British-born Whites and members of the Black group; and that South Asian minorities are less successful in reaching the highest occupational positions through social ties compared to British-born Whites suggests that the ties of groups with assumed high levels of bonding capital¹³ are weak and not strong enough to facilitate the gaining of employment.

On the other hand, state employment agencies are a technique very popular among ethnic minorities – even amongst those with a characteristically low possession of English (such as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis). State employment agencies indeed are institutions designed to cater primarily for the needs of the unemployed, and to offer help and advice; however, they are also likely to provide low-skilled to medium level jobs. The fact that many of the minority groups with control for education continue to rely on them and exit unemployment successfully may indicate that minorities value the reliability of state employment agencies, the quickness with which jobs are offered (including jobs in the public sector), and the strict operation of the government’s non-discrimination laws compared to the general labour market climate; and favour these factors over high remuneration.

In fact, it is in this heightened use of state employment agencies with control for benefit claiming that the government policies of the incorporation of ethnic minority members register a clear success. State employment agencies seem to have a particular understanding of the different needs of ethnic groups. To maintain a contact with Pakistani and Bangladeshi job seekers, for example, Career Offices offered the flexibility of written applications to them (Johnson and Fidler, 2005). Minority members registered with state employment agencies enjoy the beneficial effect of a number of minority orientated government policies (Tackey et al, 2006) – eg finding the applicants jobs within the local area, raising awareness about available facilities in the neighbourhood (crèches and day care), and encouraging desegregation by assisting minority members in their application for jobs in other geographical areas. The latter strategy is certainly less successful with impersonal intermediaries such as newspaper advertisements which are rarely consulted by minority members even in the second generation, as my research shows.

Undoubtedly, the policies channelled by state employment agencies are indicative of the government’s commitment to the integration of minority groups and the acknowledgement of the importance of providing information and resources to minorities. Yet, there are many ways for improvement in the future. State employment agencies usually offer primarily semi-skilled and unskilled jobs, and a few professional positions in the public sector (Tackey et al, 2006). As the current legislation stands, employers have to advertise their vacancies without discriminating on the basis of gender, age or ethnicity, but the medium of magazines and newspaper advertisements, as my research suggests, is not enough to reach the potential ethnic minority applicants successfully. In fact, minorities frequently prefer to have a mediator (Tackey et al, 2006) in their contact with employers, perhaps due to fears of discrimination (which holds in the second generation as well) or simply lack of knowledge about the operation of the host labour market (Friedberg, 2000). Even with the globalization of the world’s labour markets, it is unlikely that the need for consulting agencies and seeking assistance will totally disappear.

Both state and private employment agencies can take up this role. So far, however, private employment agencies – a possible alternative source of information and help for highly-skilled individuals – have not entirely acted as the agent through which professional placements can be secured. Private employment agencies are indeed crucial in the recruitment of migrant work but they are also frequently involved with the placement of the migrants in low-skilled sector-based vacancies such as Social services or Transport and Communications (Ruhs, 2006). In some cases, private employment agencies have been involved in complex schemes of perpetuating irregular migration by offering migrants jobs as sub-contractors for food and packaging companies (The Guardian, 2005). More objective research on these issues is, of course, needed; yet, state employment agencies seem the only host country institutions that strictly operate by the government policies and laws.

Europeanisation of the migrant waves

British immigration policy in the last 20 years has been orientated towards the ‘Europeanisation’ of labour recruitment, and of creating a more coherent labour market in which migrants blend more easily, although the dependence upon Commonwealth labour has continued particularly in health and education (Sales, 2007). The attempts at ‘Europeanisation’ peaked with the decision to grant free labour access to the new accession countries in 2004. In the context of the ageing British population, this strategy seems to ensure the presence of European migrants that are likely to adapt more easily to the British culture and labour market. However, public opinion has not been very relaxed towards these new migrants and many fluctuations within the government policy have also been witnessed.

White migrants have always been considered non-’visible’. Since up to the 1990s they were primarily skilled migrants from EU-15 and Old Commonwealth countries or Irish, they were often also described as less ‘problematic’ (Sales, 2007). This rhetoric, and the fact that even in the 1990s Commonwealth migrants still dominated the migration waves, masked the important changes under way in British society. For example, the share of Old and New Commonwealth migrants diminished greatly from 30% and 32% of the migrants in 1971 to 17% and 20% of the migrants in 2002 (Berkeley et al, 2005). On the other hand, the proportion of Eastern European and Middle Eastern migrants has steadily increased. The latter trend went unnoticed by the general public for quite awhile as in 2001 the number of Eastern Europeans living in Britain was relatively low – fewer than 100,000 or roughly 3% of the population (Office for National Statistics, 2008). Consecutively, in the 2001 British Attitudes Survey, Commonwealth migrants were still recognized as the most visible group of migrants and the reported levels of indirect discrimination were higher against New Commonwealth migrants than against migrants from other European countries (Rothon and Heath, 2003).

Attitudes of the British White majority certainly started to change with the enlargement of the European Union. After 2004, Britain experienced an unprecedented boom of European migrants. Only between May 2004 and March 2005, there were 176,000 applications to the New Worker registrations scheme; 56% of them were by Polish workers and 15% by Lithuanians (Accession Monitoring Report, 2004-2006). Moreover, prior to the enlargement, Central and Eastern Europeans in Britain were regarded primarily as temporary workers whose number was too small to be discussed in the debate over the incorporation of the permanently settling foreign-born. The change in figures and the dramatic increase in group size questioned the lack of ‘visibility’ of European White migrants. The concern about underestimating the number of foreigners has led even The Office for National Statistics to set up an Inter-Departmental Task Force on Migration Statistics. In this way, the enlargement of the EU drew attention to the fact that from the 1990s onwards the number of Other Whites in the UK has been constantly rising; however, their labour market performance has also become increasingly divergent (Berkeley et al, 2005; Haque, 2002; Ruhs, 2006) which questions the Europeanisation as a strategy aimed at the consolidation of the British labour market in the years to come.

The ‘Europeanisation’ of the migration waves did not quite meet the expectations in respect to age structures as well. The age profile of the coming Eastern and Central European migrants is one of a large pensioner dependency rate (Haque, 2002); which can be deemed as a sign of increased chances of return migration but is not particularly likely to assist in the correction of Britain’s ageing population.

Graph 2: Old Age Dependency Rate

Source: Haque, 2002

In terms of labour market performance, my research (Demireva, forthcoming) based on combined 1998-2005 LFS datasets shows that Central and Eastern Europeans are concentrated in skilled manual and low-skilled work. Both groups, however, experience high levels of penalization in terms of their participation rates. In terms of access to Professional positions, the disadvantage of Eastern Europeans disappears after control for education; but EU10 migrants remain continuously penalized. Perhaps, this could be explained with the fall of work permits for EU10 migrants. Under the operation of the Work Permit Scheme, a small proportion of highly qualified migrants are recruited for professional jobs and the rest are recruited for low-paid sector-based or seasonal work. Thus, a pre-selection of the quality level of migrants exists, which translates into a lower disadvantage as to salariat jobs of the work permit holders but over-representation of skilled workers into unqualified positions with little opportunity for social mobility as there are no Intermediate vacancies.

How can the disadvantage of permit-exempted migrants be stronger? According to data from the Accession Monitoring Report of the Home Office for 2004-2006, most EU10 migrants are employed in relatively low-skilled seasonal jobs with great turnover (Accession Monitoring Report, 2004-2006). If indeed EU10 migrants perceive their stay as temporary they might be reluctant to invest in host country specific capital and prefer short-term work with quick returns using the labour market in their home countries as ‘a primary frame of reference’ (Piore, 1979). More research is, of course, needed on this topic and a comparison of the performance of Central and Eastern European migrants before and after accession to the EU can be very interesting and important for the understanding of the work permit policies and their influence in the labour market.

In addition, special attention should be paid to self-employment. Both men and women from EU10 countries, Eastern Europe, Old Commonwealth and Old migrants have greater odds than UK-born Whites to be self-employed rather than have an unqualified job with control for individual characteristics (Demireva, forthcoming). Interestingly, New Commonwealth men and migrants from Hong Kong, China and Japan, who are traditionally associated with self-employment amongst the older migrant cohorts, have lower odds of being independent entrepreneurs than UK-born Whites¹³. Perhaps, this is a result of a saturation effect for Commonwealth and Chinese entrepreneurs in the Distributive sector while new opportunities for self-employment open in Construction predominated by EU10 and Eastern European migrants (Ruhs, 2006). What is more, the disadvantage against New Commonwealth and Chinese migrants (who have arrived after 1990) in the mainstream labour market is lower than the penalization of Central and Eastern European migrants as evident from their participation and employment patterns, and self-employment has always been associated with the more disadvantaged groups (Clark and Drinkwater, 1998). Finally, recent studies have implied that self-employment has been used by Central and Eastern Europeans as a way of circumventing the complicated procedure of applying for a work permit as the rates of self-employment are very high for both men and women in these groups, and many self-employers in Construction are in their turn sub-contracting (Ruhs, 2006).

Although these thriving forms of dependent self-employment have brought increased flexibility to the labour market and benefits for the British economy, the uncertainty in pay, working hours and conditions associated with them make their practice and perpetuation questionable (Boheim and Muehlberger, 2006). The issue should be studied in greater detail as dependent self-employment shows all signs of becoming the future migrant labour market niche, especially if migrant turnover increases.

The next 20 years

On the basis of the heretofore outlined patterns in migration and the incorporation of minority members into the British labour market and society in general, it is likely that over the next 20 years, three major trends will be observed.

First, minority groups will have strengthened their participation in decision-making processes due to a growing representation in authority structures. The ever-expanding size of first and second generation minority communities and their importance for the British economy is, of course, not only a matter of debate in the Home Office, but also within the minority groups; with both the realization of their role in civic society and sensitivity towards social and economic inequality on the rise (Edwards, 1995). This certainly reflects upon the improvement of the minorities’ position in government and local authorities and the described momentum will become a major driving force for changes in the future. For example, according to the annual Race Equality Report for 2008, the Home Office made good progress on the representation of ethnic minority staff, with particularly strong results for the representation of ethnic staff in London and Croydon as a whole (24%), the United Kingdom Border Agency (27.5%) and the Identity and Passport Service (13.6%). In terms of the progress made by ethnic minorities along the ranks of civil servants, in 2008 6% (4 out of 65) of Senior Civil Servants were from minority ethnic groupings¹⁴ (Race Equality Report, 2008). The increase in this representation and its extension to the local administration and councils in the future is high on the agenda of the Home Office (Race Equality Report, 2008) and even the need to achieve proportional representation of different minority groups instead of regarding them as one whole is gradually acknowledged and lobbied for (Field, 2002).

Thus, in 20 years time, I think we will have witnessed some serious steps towards the reduction of inequality, and an improvement in the labour market position of first and second generation minority members that will be largely due to active participation of the minority groups in the debate over, and the management of, the British policy.

At the same time, I envisage certain tightening of the immigration controls. The failure to produce a homogenous immigrant flow through the ‘Europeanization’ of the migrant waves even in terms of age structure will bring about the introduction of more severe requirements for work and settlement in the UK. English language fluency is most likely to be the first added requirement, especially given the warning signs and discussions in the press, and the unanimity of the general public opinion on the issue (BBC², 2007). Whereas, language barriers per se might pose less of a challenge in 20 years time with increased mobility and the presence of English in school curricula throughout the world, the debate about the need of migrants to know English can easily expand into a debate about their knowledge of British culture and suitability to become part of British society. I do not think that the current tests accompanying the process of naturalization will be extended to the entry of migrants in 2028; however, in my opinion, the discussion about the imposition of such tests will be in full force at that moment. Again, I think all minority communities will take a very lively participation in this debate, which is exactly why the institutionalizing of the evaluation of ‘Britishness’ will not happen over night. Moreover, the role of tests in positive migrant selection (Independent, 2003) is likely to be one of the future’s most contingent or at least most recurrent topics. On the other hand, these restricting measures will not be carried to extremes. For example, the imposing of absolute control over the age of prospective migrants even in 20 years time when the ageing of the British society will be felt much more explicitly, for me, remains unlikely given the predicted growth say of migrant communities in the decision-making processes.

Finally, in my opinion, vacancies in health, social services and low-skilled work will continue to afflict the British labour market of the future, which will trigger a persistent need for immigrant labour. In the health sector, particularly in the nursing and associate health professions, attempts will probably be made to raise the pay and improve the working conditions in order to encourage second generation minority members to fill the positions in which they are currently underrepresented (Field, 2002). Such practices can be instituted to placate the public fear of unethical recruitment of nurses and counteract the draining of source countries (Kingma, 2006). Yet, such positive trends are unlikely to extend to all vacancies. Negative selection of migrants and skill downgrading are still to be expected if divergence in the levels of income inequality in the source and host countries continues to exist and in more general terms manual labour is not superseded by automated labour.

Conclusion

With the British population rapidly ageing, there is a growing realization of the important role that both first and second generation ethnic minorities can play in demographic change. A great deal, however, depends upon the integration of the minority members and the reaching of parity between ethnic groups. This paper strived to show that to achieve integration the existence of differential social resources between ethnic groups should be acknowledged and programmes put in operation to correct these patterns rather than simply rely on the permeating force of the global cultural and labour market changes which will take place in the next few decades.

It could be argued that in the next 40 years, migration will not present a problem since new technologies and widespread education would guarantee the emergence of a more mobile, culturally integrated world. At the same time, many signs show that such predictions should be regarded with caution. The enlargement of the European Union is a case in point. Although research shows that migrants are centred in low-skilled and seasonal work that the British-born White have left vacant, a rise in the group size of White migrants made them more ‘visible’ and questioned their previously assumed homogeneity. Thus, the ‘Europeanisation’ of the migration waves still raised concerns about the integration and presence of migrants.

Recently, the Commission for Integration and Cohesion (BBC, 2008) pointed out that language is the single and largest barrier to the successful adaptation of minority members. Without belittling this important issue, it should be acknowledged as the present paper shows that the labour market penalties are high even for second generation minority members who have been raised and educated in Britain, and for Black Caribbean migrants. In addition, migrants are streamlined for jobs according to their skill levels – the highly-educated ones with good knowledge of English occupy professional positions and the rest are concentrated in low-skilled and semi-skilled work. The unavailability of Intermediate positions indirectly guarantees that even better-qualified migrants end up with jobs at the end of the occupational hierarchy. In this way, the problem is not that the nature of White migration has changed from English-speaking Old Commonwealth countries and the US to Central and Eastern European migrants, but the mere existence of unqualified labour.

Moreover, as the living standards are bound to improve within the European Union in the next 40 to 50 years, the ‘European’ migration wave especially for low-skilled work might shift further towards the East and even cease altogether. In which case, the negative selection of migrants is not guaranteed to disappear. A possible resolution of this situation would be to keep large migrant turnover for unskilled vacancies and further restrict settling. Yet, again, travelling distance and high migration costs will make such a decision impractical and in reality unattainable.

Building informed public opinion will also play a large role in the bridging of the gaps between the majority and minority populations. Currently, very little is known about return migration, and many of the temporary migrants are considered potential settlers which raises fears about housing, social services and general anti-migration feelings. However, the recent statistics (Office for National Statistics, 2008) showed that in mid-2007, natural change started playing a greater impact in population change and there was a decline in the net migration rate possibly due to greater return migration. The existing International Passenger Survey (Office for National Statistics, 2008) which records the purpose of stay of people entering the UK and their envisaged date of leaving the country is not enough for the patterns of return migration to be outlined. Likewise, more detailed analyses of the labour market performance of refugees are needed since on the basis of current knowledge, hardly any recommendations can be made about their future integration.

It is clear that a successful adaptation to Britain’s ageing demographic structure cannot happen without ensuring the incorporation of the minority groups already settled in Britain and the extension of the principles of fair treatment to the incoming migration waves. In a way, both are likely to be achieved through the increasing efforts of minority communities to become better represented in public authorities and participate in the decision-making processes; and through the encouragement of research in previously unexplored areas. Nevertheless, migration, equality and inclusion are still very likely to be as hot and as debatable issues in 20 years time in Britain as they are today due to the gradual pace in which the labour market transformations in global as well as local plan take place.

Notes

1. Neli Demireva is a DPhil student in Sociology at the University of Oxford at the end of her studies. Her doctoral thesis is titled “Examining ethnic minority disadvantage in the British labour market – evidence from job search behaviour”. In addition to her post-graduate research, she participated from 2006 till 2008 as a researcher in the Ethnicity and Immigration Research Group of the ‘Economic Change, Quality of Life and Social Cohesion’ (Equalsoc) Network with a specific focus on migrants arriving in the UK after the 1990s. For correspondence: Neli Demireva, St. John’s College, Oxford, OX1 3JP, email: neli.demireva@sjc.ox.ac.uk

2. Bulmer (1996) defines ethnic groups as “a collectivity within a larger population having real or putative ancestry, memories of a shared past, and a cultural focus upon one or more symbolic elements which define the group’s identity, such as kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality or physical appearance. Members of an ethnic group are conscious of belonging to an ethnic group” (Bulmer, 1996, p35). The term ethnic minority refers both to first and to second generation minority groups.

3. The term Old Commonwealth refers to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The major sending countries of the New Commonwealth are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Kenya and South Africa. For full list of Commonwealth states, see McIntyre, 2001. Old Commonwealth and New Commonwealth migrants constitute the largest immigrant groups both before and after 1990. Changes in their immigrant status, however, render the migrants from these communities arriving after the 1990s more similar to other labour migrants. Recent Pakistani migrants, for example, are also defined as aliens and therefore do not benefit from having special residence and work permits as some of the older colonial generation (Soysal, 1994).

4. Asylum and Immigration Act, 1996, Immigration and Asylum Act, 1999, Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, 2002, and most recently in the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act, 2006.

5. The SBS currently only applies to nationals from Bulgaria and Romania. The programme was scheduled to be phased out by 31 December 2006, but was retained for both nations upon their accession to the European Union on 01 January 2007.

6. The 1981 British Nationality Act introduced the primary purpose rule under which an immigration officer could deny entry to spouse or fiancee if the primary purpose of marriage was immigration.

7. The study is based on data from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities and the Family and Working Lives Survey for 1994-1995.

8. Empirical economic studies can contribute little to enlighten this matter. At best, they provide only indirect evidence of discrimination by virtue of existing differentials in the wage and occupational achievements of British-born Whites and ethnic minority members. These differentials can in addition be attributed to a number of factors beside discrimination such as the aforementioned strength of social networks or degree of adaptation to the host country. Amongst the quantitative attempts at more direct evidence of discrimination, the studies using matched employer-employee data should be highlighted. Frijters et al (2006), on the basis of data from the Workplace Employee Relations Survey, showed that job satisfaction was significantly lower for White workers in workplaces with a high density of ethnic minorities, and that White male workers required a wage premium of around 12% to compensate for a move from a work place with no ethnic minorities to a work place with a higher density of ethnic minorities (Frijters et al, 2006).

9. The term ethnic penalty has been introduced to account for “any remaining disparity that persists in ethnic minorities’ chances of securing employment or higher-level jobs, or income, after taking account of their measured personal characteristics such as their qualifications, human capital and the like” (Heath and Yu, 2005, p192).

10. Patterns inconsistent with discrimination used as the sole explanation of ethnic penalization are the similar level of self-reported discrimination amongst minorities with various group economic successes (Modood et al, 1997) and the stable-over-time proportion of British-born White employers who are likely to commit basic acts of discrimination (Brown and Gay, 1994; Simpson and Stevenson, 1994). An example for the first is the particularly low level of self-reported discrimination amongst Bangladeshis – the group pointed out by all other ethnic and religious minority groups as most vulnerable – in contrast to the relatively higher perception of discrimination on the part of Indians (Modood et al, 1997). The second trend is not inconsistent with rising awareness of discrimination in the society in general and in the media discourse that will possibly lead to a situation in which the knowledge of existing discrimination outstrips the actual experience of it (Modood et al, 1997).

11. According to Portes (1995), the term social resources could be used in economic sociology to denote both the referral to the social and often co-ethnic networks available to the minority members but also to the use of the institutional settings of the host country.

12. Bonding social capital refers to relationships between similar persons (for example, those alike with respect to sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics), while bridging social capital refers to relationships between dissimilar persons at the same level of hierarchy (Putnam 1995).

13. The sample consists of 1998-2008 datasets. The New Commonwealth migrants referred to have arrived in Britain after the 1990s.

14. Although it should be borne in mind that only 65 out of 118 Senior Civil Servants acknowledged their ethnicity.

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This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.