The changing determinants of UK young adults´ living arrangements

The postponement of partnership formation and parenthood in the context of an early average age at leaving home has resulted in increased heterogeneity in the living arrangements of young adults in the UK. More young adults now remain in the parental home, or live independently of the parental home but outside of a family. The extent to which these trends are explained by the increased immigration of foreign-born young adults, the expansion in higher education, and the increased economic insecurity faced by young adults are examined. Shared non-family living is particularly prominent among those with experience of higher education, whilst labour market uncertainty is associated with an extended period of co-residence with parents.higher education, labour market, NEET, non-family living, parental home, transition, young adulthood

Outlining a future research agenda for studies of young adults’ transitions to residential independence

This paper argues that a new research agenda is required to understand how young adults’ housing careers have responded to recent changes in the demographic, socio-economic and policy context. Increasing tuition fees for higher education, welfare retrenchment, increasing private housing costs and the concentration of the social housing sector on those most in priority need, mean that many young adults are not able to leave, or return to the parental home. Non-resident fathers are at a particular disadvantage in terms of accessing welfare benefits or social housing, especially following the introduction in 2012 of an extension of the restrictions in housing benefit to a “shared accommodation rate” for those aged under 35. As young adults are increasingly expected to rely on parental rather than state support, the changing meaning of the parental home must also be taken into account

The impact of parental characteristics and contextual effects on returns to the parental home in Britain

This paper uses successive cohorts of rising 16 year olds followed up within the British Household Panel Study to examine the importance of parental resources and parental family structure on the likelihood of young adults returning to the parental home following an initial departure. We also examine whether local area effects such as urbanicity, housing or labour market factors are significant. Our analyses of individuals aged 18-24 indicate that although parental background and circumstances can contribute to young adults’ propensity to return home, this is far outweighed by the impact of the individual-level characteristics of the young adults themselves. Of particular importance in promoting returns to the parental home are experiencing a change in economic activity,especially moving out of full-time education into unemployment, and experiencing a partnership dissolution. Whilst local house prices are shown to be related to the propensity to return home for women, most contextual factors are found to have little effect for either men or women

Educational differences in childbearing widen in Britain

How does women’s education influence whether they have children or not, how old they are when they have their first child and how many children they go on to have? How has this changed over time for mothers born between 1940 and 1969? This research finds that educational differences in childbearing have increased over time

Lone parents under pressure

Of 2.5 million children living in lone parent households0F 1 today, over 1.8 million have insufficient income coming into their household to afford a minimum standard of living, allowing them to meet material needs and participate in society. That is to say, nearly three out four children with a lone parent have household income below the Minimum Income Standard (MIS) benchmark showing what ordinary families say is needed as a minimum in the UK today. ...

Residential mobility across the life course: continuity and change across three cohorts in Britain

Although a buoyant literature has emerged examining residential mobility across sections of the life course, a full life course perspective has remained lacking. This paper exploits an as yet under-used data source – the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing li A buoyant literature fetime residential histories – to achieve this. The lifetime residential mobility trajectories of older men and women in three birth cohorts born between 1918 and 1947 are compared, examining how these are associated with changes in cohort members’ socio-historical contexts, and life course events in the domains of employment, partnership and fertility. Results indicate that change in residential mobility between cohorts is gendered, with persistent continuity between male cohorts, and marked change between female cohorts. Such gender differentials are particularly notable during young adulthood, highlighting the significance of de-standardising pathways to adulthood and the changing role of women in society. Generalised mobility pathways from birth to age 60 for men and women are identified using sequence analysis, and the paper discusses how these may be associated with contextual changes and life course characteristics. In conclusion, the research reflects on the benefits of the life course perspective for understanding the complexities of residential mobility, and the importance of socio-historical context in understanding trends and patterns in this area

Households below a Minimum Income Standard: 2008/09 to 2016/17

This report looks at changes in the adequacy of incomes, as measured by individuals’ ability to reach the Minimum Income Standard (MIS), a measure rooted in what members of the public consider is needed for a minimum socially acceptable standard of living. This is the seventh in a series of reports monitoring the total number of individuals in the UK living below the MIS threshold, and looking in detail at the family and household characteristics of those below this threshold. This report focuses in particular on three demographic groups – children, working-age adults and pensioners – exploring how they have fared between 2008/09 and 2016/17

Life-course occupational social class and health in later life: The importance of frequency and timing of measures

Research investigating associations between social class over the life-course and later health relies primarily on secondary analysis of existing data, limiting the number and timing of available measurements. This paper aims to examine the impact of these constraints on the measurement of life-course occupational social class and subsequent explanatory analyses predicting health in later life. Participants of the UK Boyd Orr Lifegrid Subsample (n = 294), aged an average of 68 years, provided retrospective information on their life-course occupational social class, coded at 6-month intervals. This was used to simulate two types of life-course data: (1) Theoretical: Life stage (four data-points at key life stages); (2) A-theoretical: Panel data (data-points at regular intervals of varying length). The percentage of life time in disadvantage and the predictive value for limiting longstanding illness (LLI) in later life using the full life-course and simulated data was compared. The presence of 'critical periods' of exposure and the role of trajectories of social class were also investigated. Compared with the full data, the life stage approach estimated a higher percentage of life time in disadvantage and emphasised 'transient' periods in disadvantage (e.g. labour market entry). With varying intervals using the a-theoretical approach, there was no clear pattern. Percentage of life time in manual class was a significant predictor of LLI only when using the four-point life stage approach. Occupational social class at labour market entry was a predictor of LLI in later life, suggesting a 'critical period'. Comparison of trajectories of social class further emphasised the importance of the sequence and timing of exposures to disadvantage in determining later health. We conclude that producing a valid summary of life-course occupational social class does not necessarily require a large number of data-points, particularly if guided by relevant theory, and that such measures can reveal important associations with later health. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

The transition to living alone and psychological distress in later life

Background: living alone in later life has been linked to psychological distress but less is known about the role of the transition into living alone and the role of social and material resources.Methods: a total of 21,535 person-years of data from 4,587 participants of the British Household Panel Survey aged 65+ are analysed. Participants provide a maximum 6 years' data (t0-t5), with trajectories of living arrangements classified as: consistently partnered/ with children/alone; transition from partnered to alone/with children to alone. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-12 caseness (score >3) is investigated using multi-level logistic regression, controlling for sex, age, activities of daily living, social and material resources.Results: after a transition from partnered at t0to alone at t1, the odds for GHQ-12 caseness increased substantially, but by t3returned to baseline levels. The odds for caseness at t0were highest for those changing from living with a child at t0to living alone at t1but declined following the transition to living alone. None of the covariates explained these associations. Living consistently alone did confer increased odds for caseness.Conclusions: living alone in later life is not in itself a strong risk factor for psychological distress. The effects of transitions to living alone are dependent on the preceding living arrangement and are independent of social and material resources. This advocates a longitudinal approach, allowing identification of respondents' location along trajectories of living arrangements. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society

The low income gap: a new indicator based on a minimum income standard

In many high-income countries, governments seek to ensure that households at least have sufficient incomes to afford basic essentials such as food and clothing, but also to help citizens reach socially acceptable living standards allowing full participation in society. Their success in doing so is commonly monitored in terms of how many citizens are below a poverty line set relative to median income, and by how far below it they fall (the ‘poverty gap’). Yet the threshold below which this gap starts to be measured is arbitrary, begging the question of what level of low income needs addressing. A more ambitious measure, presented in this paper, considers the extent to which people fall short of a benchmark representing a socially agreed minimum standard. This ‘low income gap’ can be used to represent the distance a society has to go to eliminate income that is undesirably low. The paper presents the indicator, its meaning and some recent trends in the United Kingdom, where the methodology behind the indicator has been pioneered. The results demonstrate that this empirically derived benchmark has the potential to be of value in other countries, in assessing whether they are making progress in reducing low income.<br