Jane Falkingham

University of Southampton · ESRC Research Centre for Population Change

The past decade has been marked by cuts in public funding of adult social care alongside an increased policy focus within the UK on extending working lives through ‘50 PLUS Choices’. This study uses the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009/10–2018/19) to examine the relationship between informal care provision and labour market participation. The...

This study investigates the flows of downward intergenerational transfer to adult children of different gender and birth order, and their influence on parental expectations towards old-age care and financial support, using data from the 2015–2016 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Based on the analytic sample of 1218 parents a...

This research examines patterns of intergenerational digital contact before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in England, using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) Wave nine and the first Wave of the ELSA COVID-19 Sub-study. Multivariate binary logistic regressions were applied to assess the determinants of frequent intergenera...

Objectives: The COVID-19 crisis significantly reshaped individuals’ daily lives and work, potentially also affecting their mental health. This study examines changes in psychological stress, anxiety, and depression during the first lockdown amongst five British cohorts at different stages of the life course: older adolescence, early adulthood, mid-...

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted upon sleep health. Relatively little is known about how this may influence the population’s health subsequently. This prospective longitudinal study aims to examine the consequences of sleep problems for physical and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, using data from the Understanding...

Understanding intergenerational relations in China has become increasingly important against a backdrop of rapid social and demographic transitions and an ongoing urban-rural divide. From the parental perspective, this research investigates patterns and determinants of intergenerational relations between middle-aged and older parents and their non-...

Meeting individuals' social care needs is a core element of UK social policy. However, the conceptualisation and operationalisation of ‘unmet need’ remain a challenge. This paper advances our understanding by incorporating a temporal dimension into the conceptual framework on unmet need to investigate the dynamics of met and unmet need for social c...

It is well established that there is a socioeconomic gradient in adult mental health. However, little is known about whether and how this gradient has been exacerbated or mitigated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to identify the modifiable pathways involved in the association between socioeconomic position (SEP) and mental health during t...

• Changes in the size and composition of the population are the result of the combined effects of changes in mortality, fertility and migration. However, the most important driver behind population ageing is the decline in fertility rates. • The key demographic changes in the UK over the last century include a declining fertility rate, a fluctuatin...

Previous research has found varied effects of informal care provision on the carer’s health status. Few studies have however examined this relationship dynamically. This paper is the first to analyse trajectories of care among men and women in mid-life and their impact on health outcomes using a nationally representative prospective cohort study. D...

Background and objectives: Social distancing measures aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19 are likely to have increased social isolation amongst those over 70 instructed to shield at home. This study examines the incidence of loneliness by gender over the first ten months of the COVID-19 pandemic among persons aged 70 and above in the UK, a...

The influence of China’s family planning policies on fertility transition is widely acknowledged in research studies. However, little is known about how improvements in women’s education have shaped reproductive decisions of Chinese women across different family planning regimes, particularly at micro level. This study uses retrospective pooled bir...

Meeting individuals’ social care needs is a core element of UK social policy. However, the conceptualisation and operationalisation of ‘unmet need’ remain a challenge. This paper advances our understanding by incorporating a temporal dimension in the conceptual framework on unmet need to investigate the dynamics of met and unmet need for social car...

Informal care provision is an integral part of the long-term care system. However, it has been shown to have negative effects on the carers’ economic activity, and understanding the mechanisms behind this is crucial for social policy design. This study provides new insight into mid-life carers’ decisions to reduce their economic activity through a...

On 23 March 2020 the UK went into lockdown in an unprecedented step to attempt to limit the spread of coronavirus. Government advice at that time was that all older people aged 70 and over should stay at homeand avoid any contact with non-household members. This study usesnew data from the Understanding SocietyCOVID 19 survey collected in April 202...

Objectives To examine Chinese middle-aged women’s health and wellbeing and the associated biosocial correlates. Study design This study used a cross-sectional design, including selected retrospectively collected information on the final menstrual period, drawn from the 2013 wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Women...

Inequalities in the labour market are recognised as presenting a major impediment to extending the working lives of older adults in China as part of any proposed reforms of the public pension system against the background of population ageing. While a growing body of literature has paid attention to understanding this issue within the wider interna...

Objectives This study aims to investigate the impact of the menopausal transition and severe symptoms on changes in employment. Study design This longitudinal prospective study analysed data from a population-based cohort study, the UK National Child Development Study Wave 8 and Wave 9, when the cohort was aged 50 and 55 respectively. The analytic...

On 23 March 2020, the UK went into lockdown to attempt to limit the spread of coronavirus. School and university closures, the move to remote working, furlough or the loss of employment have all meant that many adult children who had previously left the parental home have returned. Other individuals have moved to provide care and support for a fami...

Background The outbreak of Covid-19 in the UK has seen many families unexpectedly brought back together. The circumstances and stories of individual families have been picked up in the press focussing on the difficulties of people adjusting to their changed living arrangements. Yet, there have been few empirical analyses on how such changes might i...

On 23 March 2020 the UK went into lockdown in an unprecedented step to attempt to limit the spread of coronavirus. Since then, many families have found themselves spending an unprecedented amount of time together, with some facing the additional challenge of adapting to changes in who they are living with as some families have found themselves unex...

Sleep has long been recognised as an essential factor in promoting good health. Previous research has found poor sleep to be associated with stress, anxiety, work pressures, financial concerns and physical activity – all factors which are likely to have changed during lockdown. In this briefing we provide the first insights into how the Covid-19 pa...

Background: The life course experiences of those born in China from the late 1950s to early 1970s have been very different to those of their predecessors; they may not be able to, or wish to, rely on their family for support in later life in the future. Objective: We investigated the attitudes towards current provision of old-age support and prefe...

Background: Covid-19 has been shown to be having a disproportionate impact on the health of individuals from different ethnic groups and those employed in certain occupations, whilst the indirect impacts of Covid-19, including the closure of schools and business and the move to home working, fall disproportionately on the young and on women. These...

Background: Covid-19 has been shown to be having a disproportionate impact on the health of individuals from different ethnic groups and those employed in certain occupations, whilst the indirect impacts of Covid-19, including the closure of schools and business and the move to home working, fall disproportionately on the young and on women. These...

In resource poor environments, identifying those most in need of limited available resources is challenging. Kenya’s older persons cash transfer programme (OPCT) targeted at the most poor used a 2-stage targeting process to identify beneficiaries, combining community-based selection with a proxy means-test. This paper investigates whether the proce...

This paper provides the first insight into the receipt of help and support amongst older people aged 70 and over during the first four weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown when this group had been explicitly advised to stay at home and minimise contact with others. The good news is that these research results indicate that the majority of older...

On 23 March 2020 the UK went into lockdown in an unprecedented step to attempt to limitthe spread of coronavirus. Government advice at that time was that all older people aged 70and over should stay at home and avoid any contact with non-household members. This studyuses new data from the Understanding Society COVID 19 survey collected in April 202...

A growing number of low and middle income countries have introduced social pension programs for older people. Research has highlighted that the impact of such programs can extend beyond the primary recipient when funds are shared. It less clear the extent to which such redistribution persists in the lowest resource settings. Using data from a surve...

As our population ages, it is increasingly common for people in mid-life to be providing informal care for family or friends. Informal care is care that is provided without any payment. Carers Trust statistics show that there are around 7 million carers in total, and one in five people aged 50-64 in the UK is a carer. Caring in mid-life can be dama...

This paper investigates the association between accumulated major lifecourse adversities and later-life depressive symptoms among older people in England, both at a single point in time (prevalence) and the onset over time during later life (incidence), using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Using retrospective data on the experi...

With increasing life expectancy, changes in family structure and, most recently, the relaxation of the hitherto strict family planning policies, understanding how mid-life individuals support multiple generations, particularly their older parents and younger grandchildren, is of increasing research and policy significance in China. This paper analy...

Electrical mini-grids can provide electrification to rural communities far from the national network. However the benefits of such schemes are disputed. We observed changes in two matched trading-centres in Makueni County, Kenya, neither of which were initially electrified. During the study a solar photovoltaic mini-grid scheme (13.5 kWp) was const...

With a large baby boomer generation entering mid-later life in the UK, and families spanning across multiple generations, understanding how individuals support multiple generations is of increasing research and policy significance. Data from the British 1958 National Child Development Study, collected when respondents were aged 55, are used to exam...

This paper is the first attempt to study the causal impact of the UK’s departure from the European Union (EU), on the post-graduation mobility decisions of EU students in the UK. We exploit the British government’s formal withdrawal notification under Article 50 as a natural experiment and employ a difference-in-differences design. Using data from...

Research on the determinants of direct and indirect energy use has identified a range of relevant socioeconomic factors. However, we still know little about possible influences of people's health on their energy use. Do people in poor health use less energy because they are on lower incomes, or do they have additional domestic energy needs as they...

International students constitute around a quarter of all migrants to the UK. Little is known about what happens to these students after they graduate. Do they follow through on the migration plans they have before graduating? If they have left the country, do they want to return to the UK? This policy brief provides an overview of the key findings...

India and China are both undergoing unprecedented urbanisation, with increasing numbers of younger people and adults moving into cities, leaving behind their older parents in rural areas. Both India and China have a patrilineal culture which emphasises a son’s duty to support his parents, however it is also men who are most likely to migrate, leavi...

The UK needs to accelerate action to achieve its 80 per cent carbon reduction target by 2050 as it is otherwise in danger of lagging behind. A much discussed question in this context is whether voluntary behaviour change initiatives can make a significant contribution to reaching this target. While providing individuals with general information on...

Background Population ageing presents considerable challenges for the attainment of universal health coverage (UHC), especially in countries where such coverage is still in its infancy. Ghana presents an important case study on the effectiveness of policies aimed at achieving UHC in the context of population ageing in low and middle-income countrie...

Background: Ghana is currently undergoing a profound demographic transition, with large increases in the number of older adults in the population. Older adults require greater levels of healthcare as illness and disability increase with age. Ghana therefore provides an important and timely case study of policy implementation aimed at improving equ...

Introduction This paper examines the relationship between national health insurance enrolment and the utilisation of inpatient and outpatient healthcare for older adults in rural areas in Ghana. The Ghanaian National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) aims to improve affordability and increase the utilisation of healthcare. However, the system has been...

Aims The purpose of this study is to analyze the internal consistency, factor structure, and external validity of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) among older adults in India. Settings and Design This study analyzes data collected as part of the UNFPA “Building Knowledge Base on Ageing in India (BKPAI)” project. The BKPAI Survey w...

Lifestyle-related chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are now the leading causes of death and disability in India. Interestingly, those Indian states with the highest prevalence of lifestyle-related chronic disease among older adults are also found to have the highest rates of international or internal out-migration. This...

The relationship between adult children’s migration and the health of their older parents ‘left behind’ is an emerging research area and existing studies reflect mixed findings. This study aims to investigate the association between having migrant (adult) children and older parents’ chronic illness in China, using chronic stomach or other digestive...

Although China’s family planning programme is often referred to in the singular, most notably the One-Child policy, in reality there have been a number of different policies in place simultaneously, targeted at different sub-populations characterized by region and socioeconomic conditions. This study attempted to systematically assess the different...

This data article presents the UK City LIFE1 data set for the city of Birmingham, UK. UK City LIFE1 is a new, comprehensive and holistic method for measuring the livable sustainability performance of UK cities. The Birmingham data set comprises 346 indicators structured simultaneously (1) within a four-tier, outcome-based framework in order to aid...

This study investigates the relationship between the provision of informal care to older parents/parents-in-law and the employment status of adult children in mid-life. The study analyses unique panel data for a cohort of individuals born in 1958 in Britain, focusing on respondents at risk of providing care ( i.e. with at least one surviving parent...

Objectives This study examines the association between elder abuse and psychological distress among older adults in India and explores whether this association varies by the level of psychosocial and material resources. Design The study uses a cross-sectional survey design. Setting The data are drawn from a representative sample of 9589 adults ag...

Contraception promotion is a crucial component of the family planning programme in China. Since the mid-1990s, state strategy has gradually shifted from demographic targets towards a client-centred, informed choice approach. Data for this study are drawn from six national Population and Family Planning surveys conducted during 1982–2006. Data from...

The CPC-ONS-UUK Survey of Graduating International Students (SoGIS) is a collaborative project between the ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC) at the University of Southampton, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Universities UK (UUK). SoGIS wave 1 collected detailed information from international students in UK Higher Education in the...

International students make up nearly one in five of all students in UK Higher Education Institutions. Still, little is known about the drivers and impacts of student migration. Why do students choose the UK as their destination? What do they plan to do after they finish their studies? Do they want to stay or leave the UK after graduation and why?...

Limited evidence exists regarding the extent of wealth-related urban inequalities in nutritional outcomes presumably attributable to the rapid pace of urbanisation. The present study has four inter-related objectives. First, it investigates whether there is a difference in the extent of wealth-related urban inequalities between the most rapidly and...

There is limited evidence on the recent trends and characteristics of individuals facing care demands for multiple generations, the so-called ‘sandwich generation’, particularly in the UK. With the large generation of baby-boomers entering mid- and later life and an increasing number of families spreading across 3 or 4 generations, understanding th...

Intergenerational flows of support between parents and adult children in Britain – CORRIGENDUM - MARIA EVANDROU, JANE FALKINGHAM, MADELIN GOMEZ-LEON, ATHINA VLACHANTONI

Recently, much of the literature on sharing in cities has focused on the sharing economy, in which people use online platforms to share underutilized assets in the marketplace. This view of sharing is too narrow for cities, as it neglects the myriad of ways, reasons, and scales in which citizens share in urban environments. Research presented here...

Understanding patterns of intergenerational support is critical within the context of demographic change, such as changing family structures and population ageing. Existing research has focused on intergenerational support at a given time in the individuals' lifecourse, e.g. from adult children towards older parents and vice versa ; however, few st...

Living arrangements in later life are dynamic, with changes associated with life events such as widowhood or moves into an institution. Previous research has found particular changes in living arrangements to be associated with an elevated risk of mortality. However, research in this area within the context of China is limited, despite China being...

Existing literature has investigated the characteristics of binational partnerships in a small number of European countries, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, but such research has not been replicated in the UK context. Understanding the prevalence and characteristics of binational partnerships is a critical policy issue in the UK context, as th...

There is limited evidence, in particular for the UK, on the recent trends and characteristics of the so-called “Sandwich generation”. This refers to those individuals in their mid-life who are facing the responsibilities of caring for multiple generations, usually towards young/adult children and elderly parents. With the large generation of the ba...

Objectives. This study investigates the impact of informal care provision to older parents/parents-in-law on the employment status of adult-children in mid-life. Methods. The study analyses unique long