With the 2015 general election looming in just under two months, it seems extremely timely to examine how the fortunes of young people have shifted over the past two electoral cycles. IF has taken ten of the indicators from the now well-established Intergenerational Fairness Index to see how they have changed during the period from… Read more »
Term: Papers
Politicians Beware: Younger Voters May Bite Back in 2015 Election
Young people are, it seems, being increasingly ignored by the major political parties because of a perception that they don’t turn out to vote, a trend which perpetuates further disengagement between young people and politics. Too many young people are used to thinking that they have no reason to vote because they don’t have… Read more »
Empty Bedrooms Undermine New Building
The growing trend towards under-occupation is exacerbating Britain’s housing crisis, according to new research from the Intergenerational Foundation. Building on previous studies from IF which have examined the issue of under-occupation, this report uses census data to show that nearly 1 million extra households were classed as under-occupying between 2001 and 2011 in England. In… Read more »
The IF Intergenerational Fairness Index: 2014 Edition
This is the second annual update to the original edition of the Intergenerational Fairness Index, IF’s pioneering attempt to measure intergenerational unfairness in the UK. Further developing the measures established by the previous Editions, this piece of research found that the prospects of young people appear to be worsening across a range of key areas,… Read more »
Higher Education: A Tale of Two Payslips
This report poses the provocative question: “Do we want our future economists, sociologists and historians to be those with the brightest minds and the best ideas or those whose parents have the biggest wallets?” The answer is surely the former rather than the latter, but this study makes it clear that postgraduate higher education in… Read more »
The £600 billion Question: How public sector pension liabilities are being undervalued at the expense of future generations
Britain is handing vast liabilities for public sector pensions over to future generations, warns this new report which has been written on IF’s behalf by the economist Neil Record. Many people are worried that Britain’s public finances are unsustainable. However, the situation is actually much worse than it appears because – in addition to its… Read more »
Squeezed Youth: The Intergenerational Pay Gap and Cost of Living Crisis
Who have been the biggest victims of the “cost of living crisis” which has occurred in Britain since the beginning of the recession in 2008? In this study, IF analyses data taken from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and the annual Family Spending survey to argue that it is the young who… Read more »
Why BTL (buy-to-let) equals “Big Tax Let-off”
The private rented sector in the UK has witnessed explosive growth since rent restrictions were abolished by the Thatcher government in the late 1980s, a period which has seen thousands of new property investors take up the opportunity to become landlords. Owing to Britain’s acute shortage of new housing, much of this growth has come… Read more »
Funding the Future: How Sovereign Wealth Funds Benefit Future Generations
Should Britain create a sovereign wealth fund to help leave a positive legacy to future generations? Many natural-resource-rich countries have chosen to invest a share of the money generated in a sovereign wealth fund for the benefit of their future citizens. There is a particularly strong intergenerational argument in favour of doing so, as a… Read more »
The IF Regional Unfairness Index: where do young people do worst?
Where do young people fare worst in the UK? This report uses data from IF’s pioneering index of intergenerational unfairness to examine how the problems facing young people vary by region across the UK. By examining a range of different measures of intergenerational unfairness – including housing costs, youth unemployment, levels of engagement with democracy… Read more »