Analysis of Religion in the 2001 Census

ANALYSIS OF RELIGION IN THE 2001 CENSUS: Summary Report

5. HEALTH AND CARE

Self-assessed Health

Table 5.1 shows the percentage of people in each religion group by sex and age who assess themselves to be in good or fairly good health. It is evident for all religion groups that as people become older they are more likely to report poor health. For example, there are around 1% of boys and girls aged under 16 years who are considered to have poor health ¹¹. Not surprisingly for people aged 75 and over, this figure increases to 26% for males and 29% for females. There are also differences between men and women in terms of their perception of their health. These differences are most apparent in the older age groups. Some of the differences are summarised below:

• Hindi women and Sikh men aged 75 and over are most likely to report the worst health, with 53% and 45% respectively of each group considering themselves to be in poor health. This compares to 26% of all males and 29% of all females aged 75 and over reporting poor health.
• For each of the Christian groupings (Church of Scotland, Roman Catholics and Other Christians), there is a higher proportion of women aged 75 and above reporting poor health compared to males. This will be linked to the fact that women in this age group may, on average, be older due to more women living longer.
• Hindi, Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish women aged 75+ are also more likely to report poor health compared to their male counterparts.
• In contrast, Sikh men aged 75 and over are more likely to consider themselves in poor health (45%) than Sikh women (34%).

Table 5.1: Proportion of people who assess their health to be 'good or fairly good' by current religion - All People

Percentages

Limiting long-term illness

The Census asks people whether they have any long-term illness, health problem or disability which limits their daily activities or the work that they can do. Chart 5.1 shows that the rate of disability and long-term illness is highly correlated with age; as people become older they are more likely to suffer from a disability or long-term illness. Overall, 5% of all people aged under 16 years report a disability or long-term illness, compared to 66% of people aged 75 and over.

Chart 5.1: Long-term limiting illness and disability by current religion of All People

Percentages

The results by sex and age are shown in Table 5.2. Across all religion groups, women aged 75 and over are more likely to have a disability or long-term illness, compared to men in the same age group. The largest differences are seen for Sikhs and Muslims. For example, 70% of Sikh women and 74% of Muslim women aged 75 and over report a disability or long-term illness. The comparable figure for Sikh and Muslim men of the same age are 55% and 61%. This appears to contrast with the position in Table 5.1 where Sikh men aged 75 and over are less likely to report 'good or fairly good' health.

Table 5.2: Proportion of people with long-term limiting illness and disability by current religion - All People

Percentages

Provision of Care

Information on the level of help or support given to family members, friends or neighbours is shown in Table 5.3.

Table 5.3: Provision of Care by current religion - All People

Row percentages

The term 'care' covers any unpaid help, looking after or supporting family members, friends, neighbours or others because of long-term physical or mental ill-health or disability or problems related to old age.

The majority of people in Scotland provide no care (90.5%); however there are variations across religions.

Table 5.3 shows that people from Christian, Buddhist and Jewish backgrounds are most likely to provide at least some form of care. Other Christians provide the most at 10.9%. It is important, however, to take into account the different age structures of each of the religion groups. Table 5.4 shows the ratio of people providing care to the population of pensionable age and above.

Table 5.4: Ratio of number of people providing care to population of pensionable age ¹² and above by current religion

The data in Table 5.4 is based on some assumptions which are unlikely to be entirely correct: that care takes place within each religion group and that the only people requiring care are those of pensionable age or over. Nevertheless, these standardised data provide a better indication of care provision and show somewhat different results to those of Table 5.3, with Muslims and those people of Another Religion providing the greatest amount of care.