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Seven Ages Of Man And Woman: A look At Life In Britain In The Second Elizabethan Era

June 18, 2004

It is just over 400 years since Shakespeare described the 'seven ages' of life in As You Like It. How accurate is that narrative today?

One way of finding out is to draw on the wealth of information now available to us on the health, incomes, education, employment, families, relationships and social attitudes of the people of Britain - large-scale datasets like the three big birth cohort studies of 1958, 1970 and 2000/1, the British Household Panel Survey, the Workplace Employment Relations Survey and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Analysis of these data by some of Britain's leading researchers, published in ESRC's new report Seven Ages of Man and Woman, reveals considerable changes in the our lives looking back only 20, 30, 40 years - in the workplace, in the position of women and in our health and life expectancy in old age. In particular, the report, which is published today as part of Social Science week, shows that:

"¢ The infant: 15% of babies in the Millennium Cohort Study, which tracks the lives of nearly 19,000 children born in 2000/1, were living with just their mum at nine months - of these, nearly half see their dad at least once a week but nearly four in ten have no contact with him at all. And while most parents are not bothered about their baby's sex, of those that do mind, dads' prefer a son while mums want a daughter.

"¢ The schoolchild: today's schoolchildren can expect to remain in education much longer than previous generations - and to finish their educational careers far better qualified. But the circumstances in which they grow up still have an enormous effect on their later lives, including educational attainments, income, employment, self-esteem and marital stability.

"¢ The lover: there is little support for the 'post-modern' view that we can all now choose individual fulfilment in our personal lives. Data on numbers of same-sex partnerships and couples who are 'unmarried with children' - indications, many argue, of a new 'individualised' society - reveals that supposedly individualised choices are in fact constrained by social class, the local economy and local culture.

"¢ Thirty-somethings: British society is witnessing an increasing prolongation of youth and dependency. As growing numbers seek the qualifications needed for success in a transformed labour market, traditional rites of passage to adulthood, such as entering employment, leaving home and starting a family, are being postponed.

"¢ The worker: the Workplace Employment Relations Survey, first conducted in 1980, charts considerable change in the British workplace - from the 'winter of discontent' of 1978/9 to a time now when talk is rarely of 'industrial relations', more of 'human resource management'. The key change has been the growth of women in the workplace - but they still earn substantially less from their employment than men.

"¢ The golden oldie: people nearing retirement now will receive the most generous state pensions of any generation. They will also live considerably healthier and longer lives. But they do not seem to realise just how long they are going to live. Those retiring in the next decade are also underestimating the chances of their retirement lasting at least ten years - and hence not saving 'enough'.

"¢ The oldest old: two surveys of Britain's 'oldest old' - those aged 75 or over - dispel many myths about ageing: even the oldest old live much of their life without the illness and disability considered a normal part of ageing, though women on the whole spend more of their extra years with disability. And if some older people are lonely and dissatisfied, most continue to lead socially active and productive lives.

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)