ESRC Centre for Population Change and Connecting Generations

17/08/2026

Solo working, not just screen time, has driven the surge in time young adults spend alone👇

Young men now spend more than two-fifths of their waking hours alone, up by two hours a day since 2014-15. In contrast, women aged 60 and over and men aged over 70 spend around one to one-and-a-half fewer hours alone than a decade earlier.

These changes have closed the gap in time spent alone between younger and older people: in 2014-15, time alone rose steadily with age, but that clear upwards gradient has now gone.

Find out more in a new Resolution Foundation spotlight, produced by CG member Dr Parth Pandya in collaboration with the ESRC Centre for Population Change and Connecting Generations: https://www.cpc.ac.uk/news/latest_news/?story_id=816

07/08/2026

🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 How has the UK changed in the past 25 years in terms of demographics?

CPC-CG member Professor Athina Vlachantoni, CPC-CG Director Professor Jane Falkingham CBE, and CPC-CG Co-Director Professor Maria Evandrou (University of Southampton) have written about demographics for an article in The Conversation UK, part of a series on how the UK has changed in the past 25 years.

In this third instalment - 'Britain’s quarter century: shrinking families, ethnic tensions and q***r winners and losers' - The Conversation has invited academic experts to write about demographics, immigration, social attitudes and LGBTQ lives.

In the article, Athina, Jane and Maria discuss how "the UK’s population growth reflects recent trends in the three drivers of population change – fertility, mortality and migration – which have implications for future generations and the country as a whole."

The changing face of demographics, immigration, social attitudes and LGBTQ+ politics.

07/08/2026

And finally... 📨If you’ve enjoyed this week, don’t forget to subscribe to be the first to receive all things change and in future newsletters ⤵️

▶️ https://www.cpc.ac.uk/news/newsletter/

07/08/2026

🌟And rounding off our Researcher spotlight in this issue of , we have Gauthier Dulout.

Gauthier is a PhD student in the Population and Health Research Group at the University of St Andrews. He is part of the Connecting Generations project 'Social and spatial mobility within and across generations', under the supervision of Dr David McCollum and Professor Nissa Finney.

🗨️ He shares his PhD journey and research background, which has led to his current role in the Connecting Generations project team - see page 10.

▶️ https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6PeRZlzYry4nhGtm?ref=Link

You can also read more of our PhD journeys series from previous Changing Populations issues at: https://www.cpc.ac.uk/study/phd_journeys/

07/08/2026

💫To round off our launch week, we celebrate our researchers 💫

Head straight to page 10 to read about:

▫️ Professor Jane Falkingham's election as a fellow of The British Academy for her contributions to the humanities and social sciences.

▫️ Early Career Achievement Awards for Professor Ridhi Kashyap.

▫️ Professor Athina Vlachantoni's recent funding success to expand engagement with primary and secondary school teachers and pupils on financial resilience.

▫️ A round-up of celebrations and congratulations for significant milestones, PhD and award successes.

▶️ https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6PeRZlzYry4nhGtm?ref=Link

07/08/2026

How are ageing populations, changing family structures, and inequalities reshaping intergenerational support?

In June, we welcomed more than 40 delegates from the UK, Europe, and beyond to the University of St Andrews for the CPC-CG Symposium on Intergenerational Change and Support, where they explored these issues over two days of presentations and discussions.

Read all about it on page 9 of : https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6PeRZlzYry4nhGtm?ref=Link

07/08/2026

Within families, does influence flow only from parents to children?

Challenging conventional assumptions that this is the case, in the latest we feature newly published research which explores whether children’s genetic predispositions for a range of health, behavioural, and cognitive traits were associated with major family outcomes, including whether parents had more children, married, or separated.

CG Director, Professor Melinda Mills, MBE explains: “Parents undoubtedly play a fundamental role in shaping children’s lives, but this study flips the focus and looks at how children can influence their parents.

"By combining demographic and genetic data, we can begin to understand more precisely how children’s personal and genetic characteristics may influence the relationships and environments around them. This helps us to move beyond viewing parents and intergenerational transmission as a one-way influence.”

Find out more on page 8: https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6PeRZlzYry4nhGtm?ref=Link

06/08/2026

🗨️ Proficiency in a host country’s language plays a central role in how immigrant children integrate at school.

The new issue of features research led by Professor Jackie Wahba OBE (Economics at Southampton) which shows that strong host-country language skills can improve belonging, reduce bullying and support educational success among immigrant children.

Using information from around 14,000 first‑generation immigrant students across 16 OECD countries, the research team examined how reading proficiency, the core measure of host‑country language skills, shapes children’s experiences at school.

Professor Wahba comments: "Language proficiency plays a foundational role in children’s social integration... and also operates as a gateway to broader human capital development. Proficiency in the host-country language supports learning across subjects, strengthens teacher–pupil relationships, and underpins educational aspirations. Integration is tied to learning, as well as social life."

Find out more on page 7: https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6PeRZlzYry4nhGtm?ref=Link

06/08/2026

Young people from ethnic minorities living in areas that voted more strongly to leave the European Union experienced a decline in their mental health after the referendum.

This pattern did not appear among white British youth, nor among older members of ethnic minority groups. In the latest , we feature an article on research by Dr Valentina Di Iasio, Professor Corrado Giulietti and Professor Jackie Wahba OBE (Economics at Southampton) which explores the mental health consequences of Brexit.

Dr Di Iasio explains: "Our evidence underscores the importance of understanding how rising populism and anti-immigration rhetoric affect the well-being of marginalised communities, particularly among younger people. Policies aimed at improving youth mental health should consider local social environments."

Read the article on page 6: https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6PeRZlzYry4nhGtm?ref=Link

05/08/2026

What do people value and what are the challenges in creating a sense of belonging and community?

In the latest issue of , we report on two projects that explore community resilience and cohesion: one based on fieldwork in Stobswell, a neighbourhood of Dundee, Scotland, and one that uses innovative digital tools to collect large-scale public data on social cohesion, trust, belonging, and community life across Britain.

▪️ The ‘Life in Stobswell’ project team – Professor Nissa Finney, Dr Alice Butler-Warke, Dr Rachel Wilkie, Dr Jo Mhairi Hale and Professor Elspeth Graham (University of St Andrews) – have been exploring how intergenerational connection is experienced in the community at the local level, gathering evidence to inform policies promoting intergenerational fairness and community cohesion.

▪️ While CG Co-Director Professor Melinda Mills, MBE (Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, University of Oxford) is leading a team of researchers who, as part of The National Conversation inititative, have created a 10-minute survey and innovative digital tools, including interactive mapping, postcode-based questions, and optional voice notes, to capture people’s lived experiences of belonging and community life across Britain in their own words.

▶️ Go to page 5 to learn more: https://sway.cloud.microsoft/6PeRZlzYry4nhGtm?ref=Link

You can take part in The National Conversation survey until the end of August at: https://www.national-conversation.ox.ac.uk/