This collection of essays is based on the premise that those born between 1980 and 1995 are an ‘unlucky generation’. Paying off student debts, struggling to get on to the housing ladder, and difficulty finding money to put aside for a comfortable retirement, are just some of the pressures that ‘Maggie’s children’ face as they plan for an uncertain future. Continuing family breakdown suggests that increasing numbers of them will live alone in old age.

Using demographic projections to map key public policy challenges UK society faces over the next 50 years, Policy Exchange – together with charity Age Concern – has commissioned MPs, academics and business figures to consider the policy tools needed for younger generations to be able to approach later life with confidence.

The resulting essays include strong policy recommendations which aim to address the major risks to the welfare of ‘Maggie’s children’: difficulties in achieving financial security, uncertainty about how increased longevity will affect the nature of their retirement, and increasing isolation as more and more people live alone.