#193 Christmas Lunch Guests
Christmas Special
Changes in Society mean that today’s lunch tables are very different to a generation ago. What will the future hold?
A Five-Minute Read
In a single generation, the guests at our Christmas lunch tables have changed dramatically. A baby boomer will see it all.
Mum and Dad were born in the 1950’s. They avoided teenage pregnancy. It was much more common when they were young because the “pill” had not arrived. They had married at 22 and had their daughter at age 26 in the mid-1970’s. A boy followed three years later.
Thirty years on their eldest child reached the age of 30. The family lunch guests would look as follows:
Mum and Dad would now be in their 60’s. One or perhaps two grandparents might be alive and capable of joining the party, perhaps none. They would be in their 80’s.
Daughter and her partner. She is now 30. They themselves would have married around age 25. They would bring with them a toddler and an infant. They might already be worrying whether in future years they could travel from their home 100 miles away. The son would also have travelled from their one bedroomed home. They might be accompanied by their partner or fiancée. There would be aunts and uncles to join the party with a collection of nephews and nieces.
We can now scroll forward a generation. We can follow the family to a Christmas lunch when the eldest grandchild reaches the age of 30 in about 2030:
Mum and Dad would now be approaching 80. Given life expectancy perhaps only Mum is still alive, hopefully not. They are still healthy but probably taking a collection of pills each morning to hold chronic illnesses at bay. They have driven to their eldest’s home for Christmas lunch.
Their daughter is now approaching her 60’s. The grandson is now 30 but still lives at home. The second child (the infant) is now twenty-five, is still at university, but home for the holidays. Neither yet has a steady relationship. One expects to find a partner and have a child. The other has already decided not to have children. Their uncle will join the party. He has been through two or three relationships but has never had a child. There are no children at the party.
Staying Home
My little exercise in demographic projection is consistent with fertility and longevity trends. It follows the increasing age of when a first child arrives. There are multiple ways that the numbers can play out. Any combination could have happened. What is clear is that the lunch table will be different. Over time there will be less people. In Japan two “only children” are marrying and having one child. There are four grandparents, Mum and Dad and child but no aunts, uncles and cousins at the table.
The intergenerational audit I discussed in Newsletter # 191 “£3.5Bn of Family Childcare” gave me the data on how long children are now “staying at home”. The proportion of 18-34-year-olds living with their parents in the UK has grown significantly over the past two decades. It has gone from 26% to 39%. That is equivalent to an extra 2 million people living at home. The numbers include students which confuses matters. They may be studying from home or just coming home from the holidays. Without the students the proportion “at home” has gone from 24% to 34%.
The numbers are weighted towards the under thirties. Many more of them are returning after college or never leaving. By the age of 30 the generational gap has narrowed. The older they get the more likely they are to leave. Having children makes a big difference. Children who are mothers and fathers themselves, are more than 20 percentage points less likely than average to live with their parents. Conversely young men without children are 12 percentage points more likely. There are differences between different ethic groups or nationalities. They have different traditions of intergenerational living.
These differences are Societal differences and cannot be explained just by demographic changes. Unemployment makes a big difference. So too does the cost of local housing, especially the cost of buying a home. Certainly, it seems that those living at home have less secure jobs with lower pay. The good news is that this does not seem to be a “trap”. Starting your working life at home does not influence your long run earning power. The intergenerational study calculates the value of the “free accommodation”. provided by parents. If the children all moved into rental accommodation the likely cost would be £3BN a year.
The 100 Year Life
Proponents argue that if we are all to live longer, then Society and our concept of a lifespan needs to change. As Andrew Scott said in a recent presentation:
“We have always had a Society were some people made it to the age of 70. We are now in a world where half of all the children born today will live to the age of 93”
Books are being written about the changes needed in Society (1). Others focus on the traditional view of a life as: Education, Work and then Retirement. That is difficult to achieve if you are going to live to nearly 100. Is the different mix at the Christmas Lunch table a sign that we are evolving as a Society? In the last century we invented “Retirement” and “Adolescence”. Before that children went straight to becoming adults. Being “old” was defined as not being able to work.
With a hundred years to live what is the hurry to leave home and start a family? Why not take more time to decide what you want to be “when you grow up”. Perhaps we need a new term for the phase after “adolescence”? The problem of course is that nature is not evolving as fast. Fertility still declines dramatically after the age of 35. IVF is not as successful as many would like to believe. “Taking your time” seems to mean less children.
WHOEVER IS COMING TO LUNCH HAVE A HAPPY FAMILY CHRISTMAS
(1) Andrew Scott: “The Longevity Impaerative: Building a Better Society for Healthier, Longer Lives
If you enjoy the Newsletter please recommend it to friends and send them to Substack to subscribe. It is free. Alternatively try the button below. All the Newsletters and lots more background is on my website thebusinessofage.com