eative pursuits. Many of these from part of school curricula. personal development and informal social education of young people aged 11-25 is also promoted by the Youth Service in Britain. The Service is a partnership between statutory authorities and a large number of voluntary organisations. A recent survey estimated that nearly 6 million young people in this age group are either current or past participants in the Service. clubs and centres are the most common types of Youth Service provision, encouraging their members to participate in sport, cultural and creative activities, and community service. Some also provide information and counselling. Youth clubs may be branches of national or international bodies or they may be entirely local institutions. are many religious groups and churches with specialist youth organisations, as well as uniformed organisations such as the Guides and Scouts Associations and Boys 'and Girls' Brigades. is provided by many foundations and trusts for activities which develop the latent talents of Britain's young people. The Prince's Trust and the Royal Jubilee Trust, for example, help individuals and organisations active in youth-oriented projects related to urban deprivation, unemployment, homelessness and young offending. The Duke of Edinburgh's Awards Scheme challenges young people to achieve certain standards in community service, expeditions, social and practical skills and physical recreation.and Sex Structuretotal population has remained relatively stable over the last decade. The proportion of young people aged under 16 fell steadily in the early 1980s, but numbers in this age group have increased slightly in the last two decades. The proportion of elderly people, especially those aged 85 and over, has continued to increase. The age distribution of the British population in mid-1990 was estimated as follows:
20.2 per cent under 16 years of age;
64.1 per cent between 16 and 64 years; and
15.7 per cent aged 65 and over.
Some 18 per cent of the population were over the normal retirement ages (65 for men and 60 for women) compared with 15 per cent in 1961.is ratio of about 105 females to every 100 males. There are about 5 per cent more male than female births every year. Because of the higher mortality of men at all ages, however, there is a turning point, at about 50 years of age, beyond which the number of women exceeds the number of men. This imbalance increases with age so that there are many more women among the elderly. of Populationdensity of population in Britain is well above the European Community average of about 145 per sq km. Since the nineteenth century there has been a trend, especially in London, for people to move away from congested urban centres into the suburbs. There has also been a geographical redistribution of the population from Scotland and the northern regions of England to the South East, East Anglia, the South West and the East Midlands in recent decades. An increase in the rate of retirement migration has also occurred, the main recipient areas, where in some towns the retired constitute over one-quarter of the population, being the south coast of England and East Anglia.economic and domestic lives of women have been transformed in the twentieth century. These changes are due partly to the removal of much of sex discrimination in political and legal rights. At the heart of women's changed role has been the rise in the number of women, especially married women, at work. With later marriages and the availability of effective contraception there has been a decline in family size. Women are involved in childbearing for a shorter time and this, together with technological advances which have made housework less onerous and time-consuming, has made it easier for women with children to combine child-rearing with paid employment. The growth of part-time and flexible working patterns, and training schemes, allows more women to take advantage of employment opportunities. make up more than two-fifths of the workforce. The proportion of married women working outside the home has increased to two-thirds of those between the ages of 16 and 59, a quarter of the total labour force compared with only 4 per cent in 1921. Married women are most likely to be in full-time work if they are aged 16 to 29 with no children. Over two-fifths of all women in employment work part-time, representing almost nine-tenths of all part-time workers. By the mid-1990s the numbers of young people entering the labour market has declined substantially and it the resulting shortfall in the labour force is met to a considerable extent by the recruitment of more married women.is still a significant difference between men's and women's earnings , but equa...
