Welcome

Welcome to this edition of Changing Populations. We are now over a year into the pandemic, and CPC research continues apace to understand its effects.

The CPC Modelling strand members have been working with ONS on new methods to overcome the challenges of missing data resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Find out how Professor Peter Smith and his team are innovating research methods on page 8.

On page 4, we explain Professor Ann Berrington’s forecasts of the UK’s fertility in the context of the pandemic, and what the projected trends could mean for society as a whole. A popular topic in the media in recent months, declining birth rates can be a cause for alarm for many different reasons, from the opportunities for young people to fulfil their childbearing intentions, to being able to adequately support an ageing population in the future.

Indeed, research from our team investigating societal ageing has highlighted the pressures faced by the ‘sandwich generation’ during the pandemic, and how many people are providing informal care for older loved ones as well as supporting grown-up children or caring for younger children, read more on page 9.

With my colleagues on the MigrantLife project, I have been examining how partnerships and childbearing patterns change for immigrants and their descendants in the UK. You can read about our findings on page 6.

And finally, we meet some of the research team in our researcher spotlight, with Professor Athina Vlachantoni celebrated as part of the UN’s Women in Science Day, and Dr Joanne Ellison discussing her PhD journey, see page 16.

As always, I hope you enjoy finding out more about our research activities. If you have any questions or comments, please email cpc@southampton.ac.uk

I wish you a good summer!

Professor Hill Kulu CPC Co-Director