Happy Valley & kinship care; Conditions at Eastwood Park women's prison, Declining birthrates in China & Japan, Beyonce

Published: Feb. 3, 2023, 12:08 p.m.

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A new report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons on conditions at Eastwood Park women\\u2019s prison has been released today. We speak to Sandra Fieldhouse, lead for women\\u2019s prisons at HMI Prisons about the findings.

The TV drama Happy Valley has captured the public\\u2019s imagination with the final episode of the final series airing this Sunday. Catherine Cawood played by Sarah Lancashire is the policewoman who we see bringing up her grandson Ryan after her daughter took her own life. We hear from one listener who contacted Woman\\u2019s Hour about how as a kinship carer she has felt \\u201cheard\\u201d by the drama and Anita also speaks to Dr Lucy Peake the chief executive of Kinship \\u2013 the UK\\u2019s largest charity for kinship carers.

The Grammy's will be held on Sunday in Los Angeles and Beyonc\\xe9 leads the pack with nine overall nominations. She has also announced her first tour in seven years, which led to the ticket website crashing. The UK concerts are part of a 43-date world tour in support of her Grammy-nominated Renaissance album. Anita discusses her success with Jacqueline Springer, curator Africa and Diaspora: Performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum and music journalist.

China and Japan are seeing a marked reduction in their birth rates which will have a major impact on how their societies function in the next decades. With ageing populations and a birth rate well below the 2.1 replacement level observers are predicting significant problems ahead. By the end of the century China is predicted to drop from more than a billion to around 800 million and Japan\\u2019s population will drop from 123 million today to around 75 million. Anita Rani discusses the reasons and implications with Dr Yu Jie, Senior Research Fellow on China Asia Pacific Programme at Chatham House; and Yoko Ishikura an independent business consultant, professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University who is working with the Japanese Government\\u2019s Digital Agency.

Presented by Anita Rani\\nProducer: Louise Corley\\nEditor: Karen Dalziel

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