Family Matters: How concerns for relatives bridge intergenerational political divides | Connecting Generations
Thursday 29th February 2024, 12:00pm
Sign up to attend this talk, which is part of the Connecting Generations Thought Leader Talk Series: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/how-concerns-for-relatives-bridge-intergenerational-political-divides-tickets-813860186727
Where do people form their opinions about government policies? The research discussed in this Connecting Generations Thought Leader Talk will show that family connections play a crucial role, influencing how individuals view the economy and government spending programs that may impact their relatives.
Surveys have typically overlooked questions about the well-being of one's family members, focusing more on the household or individual. To address this gap, Dr Zack Grant with Professor Jane Green and Professor Geoffrey Evans at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, recently conducted a new survey called Intergenpol-GB, involving over 6,000 adults in Great Britain. Detailed questions were asked about close family members in different age groups, perceptions of financial well-being of family members (as well as individuals and households), expectations of supporting family members, and targeted questions about pro-young and pro-old policy preferences, alongside political variables and vote intentions.
The findings suggest that concerns for the well-being of family members can influence political views, potentially mitigating age-based political divides in Britain. For example, older adults with financially struggling young relatives may support increased investment in education and housing, while younger adults who are worried about caring for older relatives may favour policies related to pensions and adult social care. Overall, this research indicates that 'family matters' when it comes to shaping policy preferences and political outcomes.
About the speaker
Dr Zack Grant is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Nuffield Politics Research Centre at the University of Oxford. He conducts research into why different people think the way that they do about inequality, the welfare state, immigration, and the environment in Britain and other advanced democracies. He does this through the analysis of quantitative survey data and experiments. Zack was the recipient of a British Academy Innovation Fellowship for work on intergenerational political divides during 2022-23, and will be presenting work from that project in this talk.
About the panellists
Professor Jane Falkingham, Dr Dianna Smith and Dr Matt Ryan will be panellists at the event.
Professor Falkingham CBE, FAcSS, FRSA is Director of the ESRC Centre for Population Change and PI of Connecting Generations. She is a Professor of Demography and International Social Policy and Vice President (International & Global Engagement) at the University of Southampton. Jane is carrying out research on the drivers and implications of population change with a specific focus on intergenerational exchange. She has published extensively on the economic and social consequences of population ageing, the well-being of older people and on the interplay between health and work for people in mid-life. Her work particularly concerns population ageing, social care and social security, including the design of pensions systems and their impact on resources in later life. She is interested in the redistributive effect of the welfare state, how it varies across individuals and between cohorts.
Dr Dianna Smith is an Associate Professor at the University of Southampton and Deputy Director of the National Centre for Research Methods. Her research interests are in quantitative health geography, using Geographic Information System mapping to visualise data collected or collated to address key social and spatial inequalities. She works across the disciplines of geography and public health with links to local government and third sector / civil society.
Dr Matt Ryan is Associate Professor in Governance and Public Policy at the University of Southampton. He is Co-Director of the Centre for Democratic Futures, and is Policy Director at the Web Science Institute. Matt leads the Rebooting Democracy project which aims to understand which innovations in public participation restore and sustain democracy. His research aims to establish how people can have control over the decisions that affect their lives, and crosses several disciplinary boundaries with a focus on research methods.
Connecting Generations is a partnership between the ESRC Centre for Population Change, Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, and the Resolution Foundation. It aims to understand intergenerational connectivity, producing novel science that informs policy debate.
Audience members will be able to submit questions to the panel before and during the event via Slido.
Details
| Location: | Building 4, Room 4003 or Online |
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