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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?
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Contact Emma Rawlins
  Picture courtesy of IRISS (Insitute for Research and Innovation in Social Services)