Report

Green shoots of hope? Increased optimism about future study and work in England’s Opportunity Areas

This report from UK think tank the Institute for Policy Research examines how the Opportunity Areas programme affected young people’s hopes for their future lives.

Over the last 15 years the UK has seen a downward trend in young people’s optimism about their futures, particularly among those living in England’s regions. The UK is already one of the most spatially imbalanced economies in the developed world with large disparities in education and labour market outcomes between London and the South East and the rest of the country.

This research shows that young people in areas that received support as part of the government’s Opportunity Areas programme (a £108m intervention that targeted 12 social mobility ‘cold spots’) have bucked the national downward trend and have shown increased optimism for future study and work.

Using the UK Household Longitudinal Study ‘Understanding Society’ for the period 2009-24, we compared responses to questions measuring expectations from 16-21-year-olds living in the OAs with those of similar individuals living in 19 comparable social mobility cold spots that did not receive additional funding. The national downward trend in optimism is particularly marked in the comparison areas, so the contrasting positive change in the OAs suggests that the programme may have played an important role in boosting optimism.

The findings provide supporting evidence that place-based interventions can successfully raise young people’s confidence about the future.