Abstract

A quarter of a century ago, Heather Joshi edited a landmark volume (sponsored by the British Society for Population Studies and the Centre for Economic Policy Research) entitled The Changing Population of Britain. In 2014-15, to mark the 25th anniversary of this book, the BSPS teamed up with the British Academy to hold a series of events on population developments in the UK and the policy issues that they raise, and has built on these presentations to produce a new edited collection on the changing population of the UK.

This book shows that the UK's population is increasing faster than at any point in the last 100 years, it is getting progressively older and it is becoming more diverse culturally and ethnically. More school leavers are going on to university. Cohabitation has been replacing marriage, more children live in one-parent families and young adults are finding it harder to get on the property ladder. Many women are delaying having children until their 40s. Cities have seen a resurgence in population but there is still pressure on the countryside, while the north-south divide is getting ever wider, as too are local socio-economic disparities. The contributors to this book document these changes, examine their causes and discuss future prospects and their policy implications.
The population in the United Kingdom is changing fast. This volume guides us through the key drivers and implications of population change in a careful, rigorous and fascinating way. Demography, as a science, was born in Britain more than three centuries ago. It is alive and kicking, and more relevant than ever before.
Francesco C. Billari FBA, Professor of Sociology and Demography, University of Oxford
[T]he editors have delivered a book that will serve as a benchmark in demographic research for the next 25 years…. Champion and Falkingham have brought together contributions that collectively provide an authoritative portrayal of the transformations occurring over the last quarter of a century. Whilst each chapter offers new insights into changes in the structure and composition of the population or the underlying behavioural processes and their outcomes, the volume as a whole provides a comprehensive and very useful synthesis of the complex and interrelated nature of socio-demographic dynamics. It is indeed a worthy successor to Joshi’s collection published in 1989 and one that I feel sure that many academics and policy makers will refer to in the years ahead.
The volume is well conceived and executed. The tables and charts, as one would expect from the BSPS and editors, are a model.
How much has population changed in Britain? Where has it changed? What has been driving changes? Where might they be heading? This book considers births, deaths, migration (external and internal), ageing, social and spatial inequalities, ethnicity, families, households and sexual behaviour. These important essays by leading experts are all the more valuable, as the government no longer publishes regular commentary.
Heather Joshi, Emeritus Professor of Economic and Developmental Demography at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, University College London

This edited volume is an important book for the study of population changes in the United Kingdom.

An authoritative portrayal of the transformations occurring over the last quarter of a century. Whilst each chapter offers new insights into changes in either the structure and composition of the population or the underlying behavioural processes, the volume as a whole provides a comprehensive synthesis of the complex and interrelated nature of socio-demographic dynamics. It is indeed a worthy successor to Joshi’s collection published in 1989.
John Stillwell, Professor of Migration and Regional Development, University of Leeds
The volume is well conceived and executed. The tables and charts, as one would expect from the BSPS and editors, are a model.
Tony Champion is Emeritus Professor of Population Geography at Newcastle University and has a long-standing interest in spatial patterns of population and migration. He was President of the British Society for Population Studies in 2013-15.

Jane Falkingham is Professor of Demography and International Social Policy at the University of Southampton and Director of the ESRC Centre for Population Change whose remit is to ‘improve our understanding of the drivers and consequences of populations change’. She is the current (2015-17) BSPS President.


Contributors:
Ann Berrington, Professor of Demography and Social Statistics, University of Southampton
Jakub Bijak, Associate Professor of Demography, University of Southampton
Gemma Catney, Dept of Geography, University of Liverpool
Ernestina Coast, Assoc. Prof. of Population Studies, London School of Economics
Ian Diamond, University of Aberdeen
George Disney, post-graduate, University of Southampton
Sylvie Dubuc, London School of Economics
Maria Evandrou, Professor of Gerontology, University of Southampton
Nissa Finney, University of St Andrews
Emily Freeman, Dept of Health and Social Policy, London School of Economics
Ursula Henz, Dept of Sociology, London School of Economics
Sarah Lubman, postdoc, University of Southampton
Alan Marshall, Dept of Geography, University of St Andrews
James Nazroo, Professor of Sociology, University of Manchester
Paul Norman, Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Leeds
Ludi Simpson, Professor of Population Studies, University of Manchester
Athina Vlachantoni, Associate Professor of Gerontology, University of Southampton
Arkadiusz Wiśniowski, University of Southampton