Scottish household survey 2019: annual report

6 Finance

On the whole, the proportion of households reporting they were managing well financially has increased, from 42 per cent in 1999 to 56 per cent in 2019. The recent levels suggest a period of recovery following a dip between 2007 and 2012, which may be explained in part by the economic downturn during that period.

The proportion of households reporting that they managed well financially was higher for those with higher household incomes than for those with lower. Seventy per cent households with a net annual household income over £30,000 reported that they were managing well, and four per cent said that they did not manage well. The proportion of households with a net annual household income up to £10,000 reporting that they managed well increased from 36 per cent in 2018, to 42 per cent in 2019. Although the majority of households earning up to £10,000 reported that they managed well or got by, one in five (20 per cent) said they did not manage well – more than double the overall Scottish average of nine per cent.

As in previous years, single parent^[17] and single adult households were the most likely to report that they were not managing well financially (21 and 16 per cent respectively), both above the Scotland average of nine per cent.

Of the different household tenures, owner occupiers were most likely to report they were managing well financially (68 per cent compared to only 28 per cent for households in the social rented sector).

Households relying mainly on benefits (including the state pension) were the most likely to say they were not managing well financially (15 per cent), which is more than double the rate for households relying on earnings (six per cent). In contrast, only three per cent of households relying on other sources of income (including occupational pension and other investments) reported that they were not managing well financially.

Levels of perceived financial difficulty were higher in more deprived areas, as measured by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. For the proportion of households who reported that they were not managing well, there was a downward trend by level of area deprivation. Seventeen per cent of households in the ten per cent most deprived areas reported that they were not managing well financially, dropping to nine per cent in the fourth and fifth decile, and to three per cent for households in the ten per cent least deprived areas.

Over time, there has consistently been a gap in how the household is managing financially between those in the 20 per cent most and least deprived areas, with households in the most deprived areas being less likely to say they were managing well.

Households where the highest income householder (HIH) identified as a man were more likely to say they managed well financially compared to those where the HIH identified as a woman (60 per cent and 49 per cent respectively)

There has been an overall increase in the proportion of households reporting having savings of £1,000 or more, from 43 per cent in 2009 to 56 per cent in 2019.

Households with a lower net annual household income were more likely to report having no savings than those with higher incomes.

The proportion of households where neither the respondent nor their spouse or partner had a bank or building society account has fallen from 12 per cent in 1999 to one per cent in 2019.