| |
| Project title |
Twenty+
futures: recession, global threats and young people's anticipated
futures as partners and parents |
| Funding details |
Funded by the ESRC |
| Research
team |
Lynn
Jamieson, Sarah Cunningham Burley,
Kathryn Backett-Milburn,
Emma Rawlins |
| Dates |
July 2010 - Dec
2011 |
| Type of project |
Knowledge exchange
project |
| Keywords |
Children and young people, time
and families / relationships, environment, demographic trends |
| |
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| Project
description
|
As part of the
20+ Futures study we interviewed unmarried, child free young
adults aged between 20 and 29. We spoke to people from a range
of backgrounds including those who were unemployed, working,
or studying at college or university. We were keen to find out
whether various current global issues such as recession, climate
change and security threats entered into the way they were thinking
about, talking about, doing and preparing for, partnering and
parenting.
Some of the issues raised by the participants included; finding
and keeping a job; affordable housing; debt, spending and saving
patterns; the ideal time to have a child; the effects and implications
of climate change on everyday life as well as in a global context;
ethical shopping practices. |
| Project aims |
The aim of this project is to
explore whether and how the current economic crisis and sense
of various global threats, for example climate change and security
issues, inform the discourse of childless young people about
the future: specifically how they are thinking about, talking
about and doing or preparing for partnering and parenting.
Through 40 semi-structured interviews with young adults in Further
Education,
Higher Education or Employment we will address the following
research questions;
* Is recession intruding into how young people are thinking
about, talking about,
imagining, anticipating and experiencing partnering
and parenting, in the context
of the stage they are at in partnering and parenting?
* How does recession intrude into young people’s everyday
experience and conversation about their current and future lives
(e.g. patterns of consumption and saving; views about migration,
mobility and living arrangements - benefits of staying with
parents, living independently in shared housing, living alone;
being a couple; ideas about what is needed financially to have
a child)?
* Does a climate change intrude into young people’s talk
about their current and anticipated future lives
and does a sense of other current or anticipated global threats
intrude into young people’s talk about their current and
anticipated future lives? |
Publications/
dissemination |
|
| Contact |
Emma
Rawlins |
| |
Picture
courtesy of IRISS (Insitute for Research and Innovation in Social
Services) |
|
