ESRC Centre for Population Change and Connecting Generations

13/10/2026

CPC-CG members Professors Maria Evandrou, Athina Vlachantoni and Jane Falkingham have written a piece for The Conversation UK, unpicking the triple lock, explaining where it came from, and what might happen next.

Labour has said it will adjust the pensions triple lock by 2030. https://ebx.sh/i8FHor

12/10/2026

🔐 What is the pensions triple lock, and why was Prime Minister Andy Burnham's recent announcement so controversial?

CPC-CG members Professors Maria Evandrou, Athina Vlachantoni and Jane Falkingham have written a piece for The Conversation UK, unpicking the triple lock, explaining where it came from, and what might happen next.

The article suggests that tackling pensioner poverty may depend less on the triple lock itself and more on ensuring low-income pensioners receive the support they are entitled to through Pension Credit.

Read the full explainer 👇👇

Labour has said it will adjust the pensions triple lock by 2030.

08/10/2026

📍 Save the date for our next with Susan Harkness, Professor of Public Policy at the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, on Thursday 15 October at 12pm (UK time).

Using longitudinal data from Understanding Society, Susan will discuss research examining non-resident fathers' involvement in their children's lives, focusing on child maintenance, contact and shared care. What do changing patterns of post-separation parenting mean for the design of child maintenance and social security policy, and how should policy support parental involvement when parents live in separate households?

Register to join us online - all welcome: https://www.cpc.ac.uk/activities/event_calendar/1006/CPC_CG_Webinar__Susan_Harkness

02/10/2026

📺 Catch up on last week's with Kathy Burrell, who joined us to discuss research on different aspects of the material culture of welcome, hosting and guesting within the UK's Homes for private hosting scheme.

Kathy drew on interviews with hosts, guests and volunteer supporters of the scheme, and discussed three different themes: the 'mainstreaming' of material signs of welcome after the scheme was launched; the sensitive politics of gifts and donations; and the particular material dynamics of domestic hosting and guesting.

01/10/2026

🏦 Being financially prepared for later life can make the difference between living in poverty and not.

A new paper by CPC members Athina Vlachantoni, Saddaf Naaz Akhtar, Spela Mocnik and Yuanyuan Yin uses Understanding Society data to assess the importance of ethnicity and gender, alongside other demographic, health, socio-economic and subjective wellbeing factors, in explaining whether people save for retirement through a private pension or other savings and investments.

The findings show persistent ethnic and gender gaps, with Bangladeshi and Pakistani individuals faring worse than other ethnic groups, and women within such groups faring the worst.

People who were better off financially and felt more secure about their finances were more likely to have a private or expect to rely on and in .

The paper critically discusses how current policies address the ethnic gaps in pension membership, and how such gaps can be addressed more effectively in the future.

Ethnic and gender gaps in private pension participation in the UK

01/10/2026

A study published earlier this year by Population and Development Review (Wiley) examined attitudes towards non-traditional family behaviours. Katrin Schwanitz, Lydia Palumbo, Marika Jalovaara (INVEST 🇫🇮) and Ann Berrington (ESRC Centre for Population Change and Connecting Generations 🇬🇧) compared data collected in rounds 3 (2006/07) and 9 (2018/19) of our survey. "Approval was widespread for cohabitation, nonmarital childbearing, and maternal employment, but voluntary childlessness and parental divorce were less accepted."

30/09/2026

💷 What shapes our financial resilience in later life?

A new journal article reports findings from a study that explores why some people are better able to prepare financially for retirement than others, moving beyond the traditional focus on employment histories and pension contributions.

Using a photovoice approach, CPC researchers Spela Mocnik, Yuanyuan Yin, Saddaf Naaz Akhtar and Athina Vlachantoni worked with 16 people aged 45+ in Hampshire to understand the factors that influence financial planning across the life course.

The study highlights how financial resilience is shaped by a range of interconnected factors, including:

🔹 Financial attitudes, mindsets and behaviours

🔹 Access to financial knowledge, advice and guidance

🔹 The challenge of prioritising long-term planning during the cost of living crisis

🔹 How people imagine retirement and prepare for it financially

The findings show that experiences of financial planning are not uniform. Structural, cultural and personal circumstances all play a role in shaping opportunities and choices.

The research highlights the value of lifelong financial education and the need for policies and support that recognise the diverse realities people face as they plan for later life.

“I Just Need to Sit Down and Not be Scared of It”: A Photovoice Study of Financial Preparedness for Later Life among Mid-Life and Older Adults in the UK

30/09/2026

🤝 “Providing support to parents can be the result of feelings of reciprocity because they cared for you earlier in life, and feelings of altruism because you want to care for them without expecting anything in return, or feelings of obligation because you think that one should care for their parents, or indeed a combination of such feelings,” comments CPC-CG member Professor Athina Vlachantoni in The Independent.

The article discusses the role reversal that happens when adult children begin to step into more of a caring role for their ageing parents, using the example of Jerry Hall’s children worrying about her ahead of her appearance on and whether she’ll be able to cope with its physical challenges.

Athina’s research, which is cited in the article, examines whether people who received support from their parents earlier in life, such as help with childcare from grandparents when raising young children, are more likely to provide support to their parents in later life.

“We found that, actually, having received support from your parents earlier in life makes an adult only slightly more likely to provide support to their parents, compared to a child who didn’t receive such support,” she says, with one caveat. “Women who received help with childcare, and men who received help with accommodation, earlier in their life were more likely to care for their parents later in life,” says Professor Vlachantoni.

Jerry Hall’s children are worrying about her ahead of her appearance on Celebrity Traitors and if she’ll be able to cope with its physical challenges. As Charlotte Cripps discovers, it’s a role reversal we all go through – and one that isn’t always easy to navigate

28/09/2026

“Marriage may be becoming a more selective institution. Couples who move in together and discover that the relationship does not work can separate without ever marrying. Those who stay together and eventually marry are, my research shows, the couples who are happiest,” said CPC member Brienna Perelli-Harris, Professor of Demography at the University of Southampton and Director of the UK Generations and Gender Survey, in yesterday's The Guardian.

The article discusses possible reasons as to why couples are getting divorced later, following the release of new data from the Office for National Statistics, which showed the median length of a marriage before it ends in divorce reached 13 years in England and Wales in 2025. The figure for opposite-sex marriages has risen from 12.7 years in 2023 and a low of 8.9 years in 1985.

More than 90% of people in Britain cohabited before marrying, said Perelli-Harris, whose research across 10 European countries found that an increasing proportion of first partnerships were ending before marriage.

Financial pressures, legal changes and shifting attitudes may help explain why couples are staying married for longer

24/09/2026

Congratulations to our Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE on being elected a fellow of The British Academy for her contributions to the humanities and social sciences, seen here being welcomed to the Academy yesterday by Professor Susan J. Smith PBA, President of the British Academy.

Find out more: https://www.cpc.ac.uk/news/latest_news/?story_id=807