Programme Director: George W Leeson

Britain is ageing – but the UK is not alone. Population ageing is a global phenomenon changing societies and posing an unprecedented challenge to current and future generations worldwide. Europe is the first

Increasing life expectancy implies that family members will spend more joint life time with each other, as partners, as brothers and sisters, as parents with their children, or as grandparents with their grandchildren. Many grandparents will not only accompany their grandchildren into adulthood, they will also see the birth of great-grandchildren.

Intergenerational relations have also been influenced by decreasing fertility. Whereas women in the UK had on average three children during the 1960s, fertility dropped to only about 1.6 children per woman by the turn of the millennium, having slightly recovered to 1.9 children per woman since then. As a consequence, fewer younger people meet more older people within the same family network. Fewer children and grandchildren will enjoy the attention of more healthy and fit grandparents, whereas older people will have to cope with fewer children and grandchildren being there to look after them.

The combination of an extended lifespan and the existence of fewer family members have resulted in a narrowing of the more recently born generations and a verticalisation of family structures (‘beanpole families’) in which individuals may grow older having more vertical than horizontal linkages in the family.

Furthermore, increasing numbers of families live with the reality of their members being dispersed across a wide geographical area. Young people move where jobs are – from rural areas to the metropolitan hubs, from the old industrial towns to the new service sector centres, leaving behind older family members.

Growing numbers of workers move abroad and the immigration of foreign-born workers and their families to the UK has become normality. As a consequence, transnational family relations become more common, changing the very nature of intergenerational relationships, including family solidarity and family care giving. Population ageing has thus added to the changes in family formation already underway.

Young adults are on average leaving the parental home later than in previous cohorts, forming their first stable adult unions later, getting married later, and postponing birth of their first child. Parenthood has become increasingly detached from the institution of marriage, divorces/separation as well as ‘new’ family forms, including cohabitation, lone parenthood, families ‘living-apart-together’, and so-called ‘patchwork families’ or ‘reconstituted families’ have become increasingly common, adding to the growing complexity of family life for children, parents, and grandparents. Some parents may have relationships with biological and stepchildren; others may decide not to have any children at all. The family may no longer be able to provide as much support and care as in the past, which may open up a more pro-active role for the voluntary sector and local communities – caring in particular for older people without local family support, childless older people, older migrants, disabled older people, and other older people requiring assistance.

Key questions addressed by the OIA Research Programme “Intergenerational Relationships, Families and Communities” include: 

• How are our families and communities being transformed?
• Will our cities be able to cope with the growing demand for new transport, service and housing structures?
• Will we be able to provide appropriate communities for the growing number of older people?
• Who will care for older people in the community?
• Will there be enough children to care for the number of parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents alive in each family?
• Will new extended families still have a strong sense of obligation to their new family members?
• What will happen to our young in this new grey world?

The OIA now holds an extensive evidence base on communities, families and relationships between the generations. This evidence has been collected using quantitative and qualitative research methods, including self-report surveys, interviews, observation, secondary data analyses, and documentary analyses. We have cross-sectional and longitudinal data from countries all across the globe.

The Institute’s research interests in this area have focused on the following broad programmes:

>  Intergenerational family relationships

>  Multigenerational families - Grandparenthood

>  Reconciling family care and work

>  Migration and family

>  Community care and civic engagement
 

Please click on any of the themes to find out more about the research undertaken within these programmes at the OIA.