Net migration to the UK reached 600 000 in December 2022, up more than 50% since December 2018.
Since Brexit net migration from the EU has been declining, with around 50 000 more EU Citizens leaving the UK than entering; and the increase in net migration is driven entirely from non-EU countries, especially Nigeria, Bangladesh and India.
Reasons for Migration to the UK
The main reason for the recent increase in migration is more people coming to study in the UK, and much of that is driven by the dependent partners and children of students coming to join them.
After that, work is the main reason, with people coming in the take up jobs in sectors of our labour market where there are vacancies, such as health and social care and seasonal agricultural work.
2022 also saw more humanitarian sources of migration with more than 100 000 refugees come to the UK from the Ukraine and more from Hong Kong.
Analysis
Immigration is a sensitive political issue, with 60% of the UK population thinking it is too high according to YouGov tracking (2).
However it is also clear that we need immigration to fill gaps in the job market and a lot of the increase from 2021 to 2022 was about doing just that.
Also, very few people believe we took in too few refugees from Ukraine so people are not outright opposed to migration.
Finally, the figures are somewhat skewed by students coming the UK to study for three years, and bringing their dependents…. most of these will return home after study, and while they are here they are paying huge fees to British universities which should benefit the UK economy: they are basically paying to be here!
From a policy perspective, however, such levels of net migration to the UK are the highest on record, which suggests a profound failure of government policy given that every PM since 2010 has been elected on the promise of bringing net migration down, which simply hasn’t happened.
Relevance to A-level sociology
This material is primarily relevant to the demography topic, which is part of the families and households module.
By 2066 5 million people in the UK will be aged over 85 and over, or 7% of the population.
11 million people in the UK were aged 65 and over in 2022, which is 19% of the population. In 10 years time, by 2032 this will have increased to 13 million people, or 23% of the population.
Currently 1.5 million people are aged 85 and over, or around 1.5% of the UK population. This older age group is the fastest growing and is set to double to 3.2 million by 2041 and treble by 2066 to 5.1 million when it will represent 7% of the UK population.
Health and ageing
In terms of disability-free life expectancy, the state of ageing in England is getting worse. Life Expectancy has increased, but disability free life expectancy hasn’t kept pace: as people get older they are spending proportionately more time in ill-health.
In 2020, healthy life expectancy was 62.4 years for men and 60.9 years for women.
This means that on average men and women can expect to live 10 disability-free years after the age of 65, with around a further 8 with some kind of disability, on average, based on average life expectancy at birth.
Poverty and ageing
18% of Pensioners lived in relative poverty in 2020/21 a sharp rise up from 16% in 2018/19, which equates to 2 million people.
Housing and ageing
In 2018 78% of households headed by someone aged 65 or over were owned, with only 6% of those having a mortgage.
16% of households headed by someone aged 65 or over socially rent, while 6% privately rent.
If we look at figures for the over 55s we see that the number of 867 000 homes rented privately to people aged 55 and over, which is an all time hight for the decade.
Ageing and Inequality
Taken together there has been a trend towards greater inequality between older people.
The net (non-pension) wealth of the richest 20% of people aged 65 and over group doubled between 2002 and 2018, while that of the poorest 20% fell by 30%.12, and this is largely driven by the increase in house prices.
Work and Ageing
The economic inactivity rate for 50-64 year olds increased sightly during the Pandemic, after several years of declining. In 2021 the economic inactivity rate was 24% for men and 33% for women.
Policy Suggestions for an ageing population
There are several practical policy solutions we can start putting in place now to address the challenges of an ageing population.
One OBVIOUS. and necessary starting point would be more social housing for older people of a decent standard – and if this was developed as community housing this would also solve the problem of many older people being isolated in their own homes, AND such housing could be built in areas with decent health care systems nearby.
A second area would be to tackle age discrimination in work and offer more targeted support for older people wanting to go back to work – many people want to work into their 70s, but not necessarily full-time, so anything the government can do to encourage workplaces to offer more flexible part-time working arrangements would be a help.
The ageing population: Why this Matters!
There are a lot of people aged 45-60 who are going to be retiring in the next 20 years – that large bulge just above the grey line below. And once we get below this line you’ll see a couple of significant dips in the birth rate.
So this means that over the next 20 years there are going to me MORE over 65s and especially more over 85s while at the same time fewer working age people paying tax to support growing number of retirees.
Thus if we don’t start working now to put policies and infrastructure in place to help support those older people who need it, we are going to find this even more challenging in the future as the future is going to be one of more older people and less money to support them!
Signposting
This material should be useful for anyone studying the families and households option as part of their A-level in Sociology.
This post provides an overview of statistics on Britain’s ageing population before looking at some of the problems associated with this trend, including the increased strain on health services and increased burden on young people. It also asks whether the ageing population is actually a problem or not?
Statistics on the Ageing Population
In 1998, around one in six people were 65 years and over (15.9% of the population )
In 2020, approximately in five people are aged 65 years and over
By 2038 it is protected that around one in every four people (24.2%) will be aged 65 and over.
Population Pyramids
These are a nice way of demonstrating Britain’s changing population structure:
The UK’s Age Structure in 1998
The UK’s Age Structure in 2038 (projected)
If you look at the above two population pyramids, you can clearly see a ‘bulge’ around age 30 in 1998, which has disappeared in 2038.
The age structure in 2038 is a much more even, and less like a pyramid.
This is simply a result of people getting older and fewer babies being born (the declining birth rate over the last few decades).
The Dependency Ratio
The Dependency Ratio refers to the number of people of working age in relation to the number of people of non-working age. The later group includes children and people of pensionable age, in 2020 that means everone aged over 65. In the 1990s there used to be
The Office for National Statistics uses this measurement, which is the number of people of pensionable age in relation to those aged 16-64 (working age) per thousand.
The old age dependency ratio was 300:1000 (3.3 workers to each pensioner) in 1992 , it is project to increase to 400:1000 (2.5 workers to each pensioner) by 2067.
The problem of the increasing dependency ratio
Every pensioner in the UK is entitled to a state pension and a range of other ‘free at the point of use’ public services, mainly health-care. These are paid for by taxes on the income of current workers, and the fewer workers to pensioners, the more each worker has to be taxed to pay for pensions and services used by pensioners.
All other things remaining equal, taxes are going to have to increase by 25% based on the above change in the dependency ratio.
One possible way of combating this problem is for more people of pensionable age to work, and in fact this is already happening – the economic activity levels of the over 65s has doubled in the last few decades:
An increased strain on public services
Increasing numbers of pensioners puts a strain on the NHS because pensioners use health services more than younger people.
With increasing numbers of pensioners ‘sucking money’ out of the welfare state’ there is less left for everything else – services for the young are being cut to compensate
This is because healthy life expectancy is not keeping pace with life-expectancy, and there are increasing numbers of people in their 80s who spend several years with chronic physical conditions such as arthritis, and also dementia both of which require intensive social care.
While the ageing population presents problems, there are solutions – such as improving education about how to stay healthy in later life, changing ideas about working so that people are able to work for longer could be part of the solution.
Problems for younger people
People in their 50s have become a ‘sandwich generation’ – they are now caught between having to provide care for their elderly parents, while still having their 20 something children living at home.
However, things are even worse for today’s teenagers – the retirement aged has now been pushed back to 68 – young people today are going to have to retire much later than their current grandparents.
While the ageing population presents problems, there are solutions – such as improving education about how to stay healthy in later life, changing ideas about working so that people are able to work for longer could be part of the solution.
Arguments against the view that the ageing population is a problem
We ned to be careful not to exaggerate the extend to which old people are a ‘burden’ on society, these often come from stereotypical ways of thinking about age. Not all old people are incapable or in poor health! Most older people live healthy lives into old age and increasing numbers of the over 65s are economically active.
Effective long-term planning and forward-looking social policy changes today can help reduce some of the problems associated with the dependency ratio, such as raising the state pension age.
Marxists think attitudes to old age are influenced by capitalism. Marxist suggest that age groups are defined by the capitalist system. For example, adults are people of working age, and the elderly are told old to work. Philipson (1982) capitalism views the elderly as burden on society. This is because their working life has ended, and they usually have less spending power. Therefore, old age become stigmatised in society.
Postmodernists argue attitudes to age are changing. Magazine, advertisers and the media generally often portray “youthful” old age – old people enjoying holidays, sport, wearing fashionable clothes etc. People can also mask their old age through plastic surgery. The strict identity of old age no longer exists.
The aging population is a consequence of the declining death rate, and the increasing dependency ratio is a consequence of this plus the declining birth rate. Hence these two posts might be worth reviewing:
For some extension work, you might like this: The consequences of an ageing population – summary of a Thinking Allowed Podcast from 2015 which focuses on the challenges of a future in which increasing numbers of people will be aged over 70.
Life expectancy has been steadily increasing since 1900, but this trend seems to be stalling, according to the recent Marmot Review of Health Equity.
You can clearly see the slow down in the increase in Life Expectancy for males and females in England in the two graphs below.
For both males and females the graph above shows a clear increasing trend from 2001 to around 2011, and then a much flatter trend from 2011 to 2017.
The above two graphs also highlight the clear correlation between deprivation and life expectancy, with the least deprived (or wealthiest) quintile of males and females enjoying around 6-8 more years of life than the most deprived (or poorest) quintile.
You can’t see it from the above graphs, but the poorest decile (the poorest tenth) of women actually experienced a slight decline in life expectancy in recent years. That is to say the very poorest women now die younger.
Declining healthy life expectancy
The report also highlights a small decline in healthy life expectancy, which I personally think is important to consider, given that it’s much more desirable to live a longer life in good health, compared to a longer life in poor health!
How do we explain the stalling of life expectancy?
The Marmot report says that an increase in deaths from winter illnesses such as flu in recent years can only explain about 20% of the decline in life expectancy.
The report also highlights funding cuts to health and social services as something which has ‘undermined the ability of local authorities to improve the social determinants of health’.
NB – note that the wording of the above is very careful, the report doesn’t say that funding cuts have caused a decrease in the rate of improvement of life expectancy, probably because the report doesn’t have sufficient data to infer a significant enough correlation between funding cuts and life expectancy trends.
So while the trends may be objective, we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions about why life expectancy is stalling!
One thing we can say is that inequality clearly hasn’t improved in the last 20 years, if we use differences as life expectancy as an indicator of this!
Consequence 1 – The ageing population may put a strain on public services
Increasing numbers of pensioners puts a strain on the NHS because pensioners use health services more than younger people
Furthermore, with increasing numbers of pensioners ‘sucking money’ out of the welfare state’ there is less left for everything else – services for the young are being cut to compensate
This is because healthy life expectancy is not keeping pace with life-expectancy, and there are increasing numbers of people in their 80s who spend several years with chronic physical conditions such as arthritis, and also dementia both of which require intensive social care.
While the ageing population presents problems, there are solutions – such as improving education about how to stay healthy in later life, changing ideas about working so that people are able to work for longer could be part of the solution.
Consequence 2 – The ageing population puts more of a burden on the younger generation
An ageing population means the dependency ratio has increased – there are fewer working aged people around to support pensioners. The next two generations are bearing a disproportionate cost of the current ageing population.
People in their 50s have become a ‘sandwich generation’ – they are now caught between having to provide care for their elderly parents, while still having their 20 something children living at home.
However, things are even worse for today’s teenagers – the retirement aged has now been pushed back to 68 – young people today are going to have to retire much later than their current grandparents.
While the ageing population presents problems, there are solutions – such as improving education about how to stay healthy in later life, changing ideas about working so that people are able to work for longer could be part of the solution.
healthy life expectancy isn’t keeping pace, and the sheer cost of looking after the elderly in the context of family-individualism make the ageing population a problem!
Populations across Europe are getting older which can create social problems related to higher levels of poor health among older people and a greater financial and caring ‘burden’ on younger generations.
But careful social planning can help to overcome these challenges.
What are the consequences of an ageing population?
In 1850,half the population in England were dead before they reached 46. Now half the population in England are alive at 85; and 8 million people currently alive in the UK will make it to 100 years or more. And if we extrapolate that to Europe, we can say 127 million Europeans are going to live to 100.
Hans Rosling points out that: We reached the turning point five years ago when the number of children stopped growing in the world. We have 2 billion children. They will not increase. The increase of the world population from now on will be a fill up of adults.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt: The two biggest issues that we face as an ageing society are the sustainability of the NHS and the sustainability of the pension system; and within the NHS, I include the social care system as part of that.
The basic problem we have in Northern European countries is the generational tension between individualism and communal responsibility – Across the generations within a typical family we have become more individualistic and less collective/ communal:
People in their 80s (who grew up in the 1960s) are generally very individualistic – they have retired into property wealth and are unwilling to relinquish the independence this gives them. They have also socialised their children into being more independent: most people today in their 50s (the children of those who are in their 80s) have bought into this – The family norm is one of the typical 50 year old living an independent life with family, miles away from their own parents.
Grandparents today of course help out with childcare occasionally and pay regular visits, but they are generally not taking a day to day role in childcare, and finances are kept separate. This arrangement is mutual – People in their 80s don’t want to be burdens on their children, they want them to have the freedom to live their own lives – to be able to work and raise their children without having to care for them in their old age. (So I suppose you might call the 2000s the era of the individualised family).
(This is very different to what it used to be like in the UK, and what it is still like in many other parts of the world where grandparents live close by and are an integral part of family life, taking an active role in raising their grandchildren on a day to day basis. Various interviewees from less developed countries testify to this, and to the advantages of it.)
Within this context of increasing ‘familial-individualism‘ a number of problems of the ageing population are discussed:
Increased family individualism
One of the main problems which this increasing ‘familial-individualism’ creates for people in their 80s is one of increasing isolation and loneliness as their friends and neighbours move away or die.
One proposed solution is for older people to be prepared to move into communal supported housing where there are shared leisure facilities, like many people do in Florida. However, people are quite set in their ways in the UK and so this is unlikely. A second solution, which some immigrants are choosing is to return to thier country of origin where there are more collectivist values, trading in a relatively wealthy life in the UK for less money and more community abroad.
Healthy Life Expectancy
A second problem is that healthy life expectancy is not keeping pace with life-expectancy, and there are increasing numbers of people in their 80s who spend several years with chronic physical conditions such as arthritis, and also dementia – which require intensive social care.
Low ‘healthy life expectancy’ is more of a problem for the most deprived
As with the first point above, this is more of a social problem when children do not see it as their duty to care for their elderly parents – It is extremely expensive to provide round the clock care for chronic conditions for several years, and this puts a strain on the NHS. Basically, the welfare state cannot cope with both pensions and chronic care.
One potential solution to the above is mentioned by Sally Greengross: the Germans in some cases now export older people to Eastern European countries because they can’t afford – or they say they can’t – to provide all the services they need in Germany itself. Could this be the future of chronic elderly care in the UK – Exporting dementia patients to poorer countries?
However, the idea of care-homes themselves are not dismissed when it comes to end of life care – the consensus seems to be that the quality of care in UK elderly care homes is generally very good, and better than your typically family could provide (despite all the not so useful scare programmes in the media).
No money left for the young
A third problem is for those in their 50s – with their parents still alive and ‘sucking money out of the welfare state’ there is less left for everything else – and this has been passed down to the youngest generation.
As a result people in their 50s now face the prospect of their own children living at home for much longer and having to help them with tuition fees and mortgage financing, meaning that their own plans for retirement in their late-50s/ early 60s are looking less likely – In other words, the next two generations are bearing a disproportionate cost of the current ageing population.
Worryingly, there is relatively little being done about this in government circles – Yes, the state pension age has been raised, and measures have been taken to get people to bolster their own private pensions, but this might be too little to late, and it looks like little else is likely to be done – The issue of the ageing population and the cost of welfare for the elderly is not a vote-winner after all.
The programme concludes by pointing out that pensions and care homes are only part of the debate. What will also be needed to tackle the problems of the ageing population is a more age-integrated society, a possible renegotiation at the level of the family so that grandparents are more integrated on a day to day basis in family life (trading of child care for a level of elderly care) and also social level changes – to make work places and public places more accessible for the elderly who might be less physically able than those younger than them.
A related topic in the Global Development module is the question of whether ‘overpopulation’ is a problem – an informed view on this topic is that of Hans Rosling’s who argues that ‘overpopulation’ isn’t really a problem at all because of the rapid global decline in birth rates.
From 1900 to the Second World War the largest immigrant group to the UK were Irish, mainly for economic reasons, followed by Eastern and Central Europian Jews, who were often fleeing from persecution.
Before the 1950s very few immigrants were non-white.
By contrast, during the 1950s, black immigrants from the Caribbean begain to arrice in the UK, followed during the 1960s and 70s by South-Asian immigratnts from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Since 2001 the main sources of immigration to the UK have been as follows:
15% UK citizens returning home-ownership
30% from the European Uniion (mainly Polish)
30% from New Commonwealth countries such as india
To what extent is migration responsible for UK population growth?
In short, it’s not all about increased immigration, it’s more complex!
For most of the 20th century, the growth of the UK population was the result of natural increase (more births than deaths). Until the 1980s the numbers of people emigrating was greater than the number of people immigrating
More recently, however, and especially since the turn of the Millennium (around the year 2000), there has been an increase in net migration, reaching a peak in 2011 of just over 250, 000. However, this recent increase in net migration is mainly due to the decrease in emmigration, rather than an increase in immigration.
Finally, there has been a mini baby boom in the UK since the year 2000 which is responsible for about a third of the increase in recent population growth. However,
Explaining the reasons for immigration to the UK
In order to explain immigration, you have to look at both push and pull factors.
Push factors are things llike escaping poverty, unemployment or persecution.
Pull factors include things like better opportunities for jobs, study, a higher shtandard of living, more political and religious freedom and joining relatives.
The main pull factors to the UK in recent years have been:
To study at university (and also resulting in short term immigration only)
For employment – NB historically this is the major reason, and yes this does explain Polish immigration to a large extent but it’s also worth noting that many early migrants from the Caribbean and South-Asia were recruited by the British government to fill labour shortages in the UK – so quite literally pulled to the UK.
To be with family members.
The most significant push factor has been to seek asylum from Persecution. The most significant recent wave of this type was when 30 000 East African Asians escaped racist persecution by Iid Amin in Uganda in the 1970s. More recently Britain has accepted thousands of refugees fleeing persecution from several countries.
Another significant push factor is the high levels of unemployment in some southern and eastern European countries – Spain for example has youth unemployment of around 50%.
Explaining the reasons for emmigration from the UK
Historically the UK has been a net exporter of people. Two of the main reasons for emmigration include:
To take advantage of better employment opportunities
To have a higher standard of living – To benefit from the lower cost of living abroad in retirement.
If we go back into long term history, we could even add ‘colonial conquest’ to list – much early emigration was linked to the British Empire’s desire to control resources in other parts of the world.
The consequences of immigration for the United Kingdom
Economic growth, technological developments, more women in work and the child centred society.
The birth rate in England and Wales fell from 18/1000 to just 11/1000 between 1950 and 2023.
The Total Fertility Rate declined from 2.9 babies per woman in 1960 to just 1.6 babies per woman in 2022.
This means both the birth rate and the total fertility rate have almost halved in the last 70 years.
Some of the main reasons for this trend include economic changes, technological chances, changing gender roles, postmodernisation and changes to the position of children.
Key terms
The Birth Rate is total number of live births per thousand members of the population per year.
The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is the average number of live children that a group of women would have if they experienced the age-specific fertility rates for the calendar year in question throughout their childbearing lifespan.
Trends in the Birth Rate and Total Fertility Rate
Between 1950 and 2023 the birth rate in England and Wales declined from 18/1000 to 11/1000….
The Total Fertility Rate has fell from 2.9 babies per woman in 1960 to just 1.6 babies per women in 2022….
How do we explain the long term decline in the UK’s birth rate?
Five main factors can explain the long term decline in the UK’s birth rate:
Economic changes: improved living standards and the recent rising cost of living.
Technological and medical advances such as contraception.
Changes in the role of women – more women in work means they have fewer babies.
Postmodernisation – individualisation means having children is more of a choice, less of a norm.
Changes to childhood – children are now very expensive!
Economic Changes
Globally, the general trend is that the wealthier the country, the lower the birth rate. It would seem that economic growth and rising living standards mean adults have fewer children. Part of the reason for this is that higher living standards mean better quality housing, better nutrition, better education and better medical care – all of which reduce the infant mortality rate, meaning that parents have fewer ‘replacement babies’ to make up for those who die before their first birthday.
A second factor here is related to Functionalism – as Functionalists see it, as societies evolve and become more complex, other institutions take over key functions of the family – men go into wage labour, which gets taxed, which then translates into schools and hospitals and pensions – the last century in the UK has seen the emergence of all of these institutions – people no longer need children to look after them in their old age, or to work the fields, other institutions do this, so people have fewer children. (This is related to the Functional Fit Theory.)
A final way economic factors can reduce the birth rate are that people are so busy working they don’t have time to start families – which is the case in contemporary Japan.
A criticism of economic arguments is that they are deterministic, people don’t just react to economic changes like robots, and they also appear a little ‘cold’ – It implies that people only have children for selfish, economic reasons.
The decline in Infant Mortality
Infant mortality has decreased significantly in the UK since 1980. In 1980 the infant mortality was 12/1000 babies, by 2021 it was down to just 3.7/1000.
NB this is worth mentioning here because it is a significant achievement. However this probably doesn’t explain much of the decrease in the birth rate in the UK, because 12/1000 was already very low in 1980. (Obviously 3.7 is better!)
When you look at the global picture however declining infant mortality is a very significant factor in explaining the global trend in declining birth rates.
Technological Changes
The development of contraceptive technologies in the 1960s – Namely the contraceptive pill – gave rise to what Anthony Giddens calls ‘plastic sexuality’ where Sex becomes detached from reproduction. Also, importantly, The Pill gave women control of their reproduction and they could choose when to have children. There is no direct correlation between the invention of The Pill and the decline in the fertility rate – in fact the Baby Boom of the 1960s came immediately after The Pill’s invention, and most women clearly still choose to have babies, but this technological change does explain why women have babies later in life and have fewer children.
Other technological innovations which have led to people having babies later in life are IVF and the freezing of eggs – together these technologies mean women can delay having children into their 40s, extending the ‘natural’ period of fertility much later than is traditionally the case.
An attendant analysis point here is that for IVF to be available for all women, it requires the state to fund it, otherwise this would be prohibitively expensive for couples with low incomes, so for this technological factor to have an impact, it needs to combine with political rights and a wealthy state.
Changes in the Role of Women
Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck both regard this as the most important factor explaining the decline in the birth rate. Because women how have formal legal equality with men, and increased educational opportunities (girls are now outperforming boys at school), women now make up half the work force, and this has led to changes in attitudes to family life – Career now comes first for many women, and childbearing is delayed by an average of ten years compared to in the 1950s. Women now typically have their first babies in their 30s, not their 20s and up 1/4 women are expected to remain childless.
As an evaluation point here – it is important not to exaggerate the advances women have made, when the children come along, it is still predominantly women who do the majority of childcare and housework and suffer the consequences in terms of their career.
Postmodernisation
All of the above changes are part of the broader process of postmodernisation – The decline of traditional norms and values such as those associated with religions mean that contraception is no longer viewed in a stigmatised way and declining birth rates also reflect individualisation – the fact that we put our own needs first and it is acceptable to choose not to have children.
A criticism of Postmodernism is that many people simply don’t choose to have children. Many people are forced into living an uncertain, unpredictable life where having children may not be a possibility or simply not be rational or affordable.
Changes in the position of children
Until the late 19th century children were an asset to their parents because they could be sent out to work. Today, laws protect children from working and dictate that they should spend 18 years in education, and thus children have become an economic liability – they are a net drain on parents’ income. This puts people off having children.
People also have fewer children because we now live in a ‘child centred society‘. It is expected that children be the centre of family life, and parents are expected to spend more money (£250K is the average cost) and more time than ever engaged with their children – it is easier to do this with fewer children.
Related Posts
This topics relevant to the families and households module within the A-level sociology syllabus.
