Demography, Location and Young People

Abstract

As an age-specific agency the Youth Service is particularly vulnerable to shifts in the size and location of its client group. Despite a key relationship between supply and demand, questions of demography have aroused little interest amongst Youth Service administrators, practitioners or academics. Virtually nothing has been written on the topic and, surprisingly, the Service has paid scant attention to the policy implications of, for example, the sharp decline in the numbers of young people in Great Britain and Northern Ireland observable between the late 1980s and the end of the century (Figure 2.1). This chapter will certainly not fill the gap but it will, it is hoped, go some way towards encouraging a heightened awareness of the centrality of demography to discussions regarding youth policy.