The Research Centre for Micro-Social Change (MiSoC): Understanding individual and family behaviours in a new era of uncertainty and change

Changes to our society are being driven by both long-term social and economic trends, and the impacts of recession and austerity. Five social trends drive the new research programme of the Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (MiSoC): i) new features of the job market that are changing the fortunes of different groups of people; ii) changing family set-up and relationships; iii) reform of and cut-backs in the provision of housing, education, health, and benefits; iv) breaking down of social and political beliefs, and increasing ethnic and religious diversity; v) changes in our values to be more accepting of personal freedom and more tolerant of inequality. Of course, modern societies are always changing, but the next decade poses new challenges. Recession, austerity and the patchy nature of the recovery mean things looks bleak for many. Ties between family, friends and neighbours, weakening as the UK grew richer and as individuals became more mobile, have been put under further stress by hard times. Our new research programme aims to point to ways in which society can continue to integrate people with diverse backgrounds, preferences and abilities. The research will be led by a team of experts at the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex, with collaborators across the UK and in other countries, and will be directed jointly by Mike Brewer, Professor of Economics and David Voas, Professor of Population Studies. Our work covers three main areas: The first area examines how individuals and families are affected by and react to changes in their life circumstances, including shocks to their health, disability, income and living arrangements. Our researchers will pay special attention to the way that new welfare systems, such as changes to benefits, protect households. We will be making a major contribution to important debates on poverty by advancing new ways of measuring poverty, and with new evidence on the dynamics of poverty. The second investigates how new members of society - children, young people and new migrants -develop and are integrated into it. We will analyse how parents, school, peers and society interact to influence the development of children's mental, social and physical skills, and the long-term consequences of childhood disadvantage. We will also look at how some people get more out of gaining a university degree than others. We will provide new evidence on the integration of ethnic minorities, and how this varies across individuals. We will look at the experience of new migrants, and how characteristics and behaviours are passed between generations in migrant families. The third area of research investigates how values, attitudes, expectations, tastes or preferences and identity are formed, and how they are linked to our education, employment and family set-up. A better understanding of this will help policy-makers come up with the best policies to help more people live successful, happy lives. How we research the important issues facing society today is just as important as the research itself, so our integrated programme of methodological work will help researchers to better examine the impact of specific policies, and to advise on new ways to handle the sometimes incomplete information which comes from survey data they are using in their research. We expect this programme of research to benefit a wide range of organisations involved in policy debates, policy design and practice, in a range of domains, located in the UK and other countries, and provide evidence informing key policy choices, such as the balance between intervening late or early in children's lives, the role of family and wider society in an individual's development, the choice between universal or targeted support or safety nets for the vulnerable, and the relative roles of values, expectations and preferences versus structure in determining how we act.