The United Kingdom's Economic and Social Research Council described Generation X as "Thatcher's children" because the cohort grew up while Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, "a time of social flux and transformation". Those born in the late 1960s and early 1970s grew up in a period of social unrest. While unemployment was low in the early 1970s, industrial and social unrest escalated. Strike action culminated in the "winter of discontent" in 1978–79, and the Troubles began to unfold in Northern Ireland. The turn to neoliberal policies introduced and maintained by consecutive conservative governments from 1979 to 1997 marked the end of the post-war consensus. Educationally, the vast majority of the cohort attended secondary modern schools, relabelled comprehensive schools with compulsory education ending at the age of 16. The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 and the liberalisation of higher education in the UK saw greater numbers gaining places, especially those born at the tail-end of the generation.