Strategic Challenges

Social Diversity and Population Dynamics

Local, national and transnational communities are being formed and re-formed at unprecedented speed. Changing patterns of migration, economic opportunity, environmental change, fertility, ageing and new family and household dynamics interact with complex consequences.

Understanding the extent and implications of these changes will be essential if we are to seize the opportunities for economic resilience, opportunity and wellbeing that diversity and change can bring, and this will require novel contributions from the social sciences. Inequality which may be compounded by the recession challenges solidarity both within countries and between them. Rapid social change demands rethinking of how societies define and pursue collective goals - through public, private or third sector organisations at various scales, from neighbourhood to regions, state and transnational.

Research will be essential to measure change both within the UK and globally. For example, there is evidence that declines in childbearing observed in the 1990s throughout the world have stalled in recent years with major implications for future demands for food and other natural resources. In addition, understanding the extent and motivations for migration to and from the UK remains a challenge.

The ESRC will also enhance knowledge about complex and often deeply embedded differences in practices, ethnicity, and belief alongside class, locality and gender. It will build understanding of the different ways in which people value, respond to and interact with diversity. It will also focus on the implications of these challenges for the quality and renewal of western democratic systems. Diversity and inequality may 'fracture' society, exclude some groups from traditional forms of civic engagement and belonging, and corrode the fabric of democracy or it may stimulate new forms of representation and participation and enhance our practice of democracy. We need to reconsider collective identities (e.g. the debate on 'Britishness'), the structures of government (from local to transnational), the policy interventions (e.g. renewing the scope of equalities policy), and the modes of political participation (including new web-based technologies) that are capable of addressing these challenges. Most critically, we need to identify and to test the interventions which will impact quickly and positively on inequality.

This research agenda is methodologically challenging and theoretically refreshing. It will require the harnessing of existing and new datasets and of disciplines within and beyond social science to the understanding of social diversity. It will also push methodological boundaries, connecting quantitative and qualitative research agendas to new experimental methods, and doing so through carefully designed comparative analysis. It will also open up new ways to engage the public in research and in identifying ways to bring about beneficial change.

Fundamental challenges include:

• How policies on migration, fertility, social mobility, and local, national and international economic management affect and are affected by social groups
• How shifting demographic trends - ageing populations, greater female employment, growing migrant communities - impact on the delivery of public, private and third sector services
• How to promote collective wellbeing while engaging the confidence and participation of diverse populations
• How diverse populations in particular places create, innovate and use technologies to promote connectivity and cohesion.

The changes in international demography - population increases, migration and ageing, challenge how we live and act together in specific places. Particularly important links for work under this challenge include with on understanding how communities can secure access to safe and affordable food and water. There are also links to , in terms of how diverse communities can minimise violent conflict while sustaining rights for all. Further understanding how connected communities will enhance learning opportunities for sustainable economic recovery also contributes to the

The ESRC will work with: the MRC, other Research Councils, government and charities on fertility, lifelong health and wellbeing; and the AHRC and EPSRC on connected communities.

Achievements for 2005-2008

• Contributing to the improvement in the quality of life of older people. Interdisciplinary research reveals the dynamic interplay between ageing individuals and their changing technological, cultural, social and physical environments - local, national and global - and means for overcoming the consequent constraints on the quality of life of older people.
• Creating better understanding of the causes of population change, democratic processes and the implications for economic welfare and social support at the national, local, household and individual level. By examining issues such as fertility, motherhood, childlessness, childcare, health and wellbeing, employment and demographic change, identity, ethnicity, segregation, religiosity, political and social values and constitutional preferences, cohabitation, mobility and education.
• Advancing understanding of religion in society by exploring the role of religion in shaping our lives, questions of belief, human culture and wider society. This is being achieved through fostering collaborative endeavours across the arts, humanities and social sciences by supporting research of the highest quality and international significance.

Priorities for 2009-2014

By 2014 the ESRC will have:

• Undertaken research on the levels, and the implications of the pace of change in these levels, of childbearing globally
• Continued to work on the dynamics of migration into and from the UK
• Provided new evidence on the role played by neighbourhoods and communities in enhancing economic, cultural and educational opportunity and on the interventions necessary to achieve greater security, prosperity and a less fractured society
• Developed a clearer understanding of the challenges of democratic renewal in the UK and beyond, and worked with government at all levels to tackle those challenges
• Harnessed key longitudinal resources to further extend short, medium and longer term understanding of social diversity and population dynamics
• Utilised and combined new and existing survey and administrative data to reveal the interplay of migration, ageing, fertility and place in enabling individual and family resilience
• Facilitated access to population records to inform research by developing and implementing a new programme to disseminate the data from the 2011 UK Census of Population and to encourage the linkage of those data with a wide range of other sources of data (qualitative, quantitative, administrative and born digital) to address research questions across a wide spectrum of areas.