Scottish Household Survey 2020 - telephone survey: culture and heritage report

1. Executive Summary

Introduction

The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) provides evidence on the composition, characteristics, attitudes and behaviour of private households and individuals across Scotland.

It provides data each year on engagement with culture and heritage in Scotland, how often people visit different cultural places/events or take part in different cultural activities, and on satisfaction levels with local authority cultural services.

This report provides further information on cultural attendance and participation to that provided in the SHS Key Findings publication^[1] by providing further analysis across protected and socio-economic characteristics. These include disaggregations by gender, age, qualification level, Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), household income, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, economic status and two-fold urban rural classification.

Impact of Covid-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on the evidence available through the SHS. In particular, the pandemic interrupted data collection, and necessitated a change of mode of collection to interviews via one-way video link and telephone. There have been reductions in response rates, changes in respondent profiles, and potential mode effects. The implications of Covid-19 on the SHS methodology are set out in a supplementary report^[2]. In particular, it has not been possible to provide break downs at sub-national or local authority level; it is also not possible to provide comparisons with previous years' data.

Covid-19, and the restrictions put in place to restrict spread of the virus, will likely have had an impact on the results. A range of cultural and heritage venues were operating under capacity restrictions, or were closed to the public, at various points after March 2020; social distancing requirements may also have impacted on individuals' ability to attend or participate in some cultural activities. While it is not possible to quantitatively compare attendance and participation across activities with previous years, owing to limitations summarised above, these issues should also be borne in mind when interpreting the data.

Cultural Engagement

Cultural engagement in Scotland was high in 2020, with 86 per cent of adults were culturally engaged, either having attended a cultural event / visited a place of culture or having participated in a cultural activity in the last 12 months.

Attendance at Cultural Events and Visiting Places of Culture

In 2020, 44 per cent of adults in Scotland had attended or visited a cultural event or place in the last 12 months. When trips to the cinema are excluded, the attendance figure was lower at 39 per cent.

The most common places that adults attended were historic places (18 per cent) and the cinema (17 per cent). There was a lower share of adults that visited the library (13 per cent), museums (12 per cent) and art galleries and theatres (8 per cent).

56 per cent of adults had not attended a cultural event or visited a place of culture in the last 12 months.

The 2020 data also show that:

• Attendance at a cultural event or place in the last 12 months was broadly similar between women and men. 45 per cent of women had attended or visited a cultural event or place compared to 43 per cent of men.
• Younger age groups had notably higher rates of attending a cultural event or visited places of culture in the last 12 months than older age groups. A higher share of 16 to 24 year olds (55 per cent) had attended or visited a cultural event or place compared to the overall population.
• A higher share of adults with degrees or professional qualifications attended cultural events and visit places of culture than the population overall, and attendance was lowest for those with no qualifications or 'other' qualifications (58 per cent compared to 20 per cent).
• Rates of cultural attendance were highest among those living in the 'least deprived' SIMD quintile. There was a 17 percentage point difference in cultural attendance (including cinema) between those living in the 20 per cent most and 20 per cent least deprived areas (36 per cent compared with 53 per cent).
• Cultural attendance was higher among households with greater net annual household income. Half of those with a net annual household income of over £30,000 had attended or visited a cultural event or place in the last 12 months. Whereas, 29 per cent of respondents with a net annual household income of between £0 and £10,000 had attended or visited a cultural event or place.
• Cultural attendance was lower among adults that reported having a disability. 32 per cent of those that reported a disability had attended or visited a cultural event or place compared with 48 per cent attendance for those that reported having no disability.
• Cultural attendance was highest for 'White: Other' adults (65 per cent).51 per cent of minority ethnic adults had attended or visited a cultural event or place compared 48 per cent for 'White: Other British' adults and with 42 per cent for 'White: Scottish' adults. However, these differences were found not to be statistically significant.
• No statistically significant differences were observed for cultural attendance between adults of different sexual orientation.
• Cultural attendance was highest for those who said their religion was 'Other Christian' (51 per cent), and lower for those who said 'Church of Scotland' (36 per cent) and 'Roman Catholic' (38 per cent).
• Cultural attendance (including cinema) was highest for single adults (49 per cent) and lower for widowed adults (25 per cent) and divorced / separated adults (37 per cent).
• Cultural attendance (including cinema) was highest for adults in employment (48 per cent) and lowest for those permanently retired from work (34 per cent).
• Cultural attendance for those living in urban areas compared to those living in rural areas is broadly the same. 45 per cent of adults living in urban areas had visited a cultural place or attended a cultural event compared with 42 per cent of adults living in rural areas.

Participation in Cultural Activities

In 2020, 83 per cent of adults in Scotland participated in a cultural activity. Reading was by far the most common cultural activity. When reading is excluded, participation was 62 per cent. The next most popular activity was viewing performances online (27 per cent), followed by crafts (23 per cent).

Less than one in five people (17 per cent) had not participated in any cultural activity in the last 12 months.

In 2020, the cultural activity that was done the most frequently was reading a book for pleasure. Of those who read for pleasure, 85 per cent had done so at least once a week, and a further 9 per cent had read less often than once a week, but at least once a month. 66 per cent of those who had played a musical instrument, had done so at least once a week.

The 2020 data also indicate that:

• More women than men reported having participated in a cultural activity in the last 12 months. 88 per cent of women had participated in a cultural activity in the last 12 months compared with 78 per cent of men, though this varied by activity.
• Cultural participation was broadly similar for all age groups in 2020. However, when reading was excluded from the measure, younger age groups were more likely than older age groups to participate in cultural activities, reflecting the high level of reading amongst older age groups. 76 per cent of 16 to 24 year olds had participated in cultural activities when reading was excluded compared to 44 per cent of those aged 75 and over.
• Participation in cultural activities was highest among adults with a degree or professional qualification (92 per cent) and lowest for those with no qualifications (66 per cent).
• Participation in cultural activities was highest among adults living in the least deprived areas (89 per cent) and lowest for those living in the most deprived areas (75 per cent).
• Cultural participation was broadly similar for those with a net annual household income above £30,000 and those with a net annual household income below £10,000. However, when reading is excluded, participation was notably lower for those with a net annual household income of less than £10,000 (50 per cent) compared to those with a net annual income of above £30,000 (65 per cent).
• Cultural participation between adults that reported having a disability and those that reported having no disability is broadly similar. However, the difference is greater when reading is excluded, with participation for those reporting a disability being 53 per cent and, for those with no disability, it was 65 per cent.
• Compared to the average, cultural participation was higher for 'White: Other' adults (92 per cent) in 2020. Cultural participation between minority ethnic adults (80 per cent) was broadly similar to 'White: Scottish' adults (82 per cent).
• Cultural participation was similar between adults of different sexual orientation, with 83 per cent of both heterosexual / straight adults and gay, lesbian or bisexual adults having participated in a cultural activity in the 12 last months from the date interviews took place.
• Cultural participation (including reading) across different religious groups was broadly similar, with the only notable difference observed between adults who said their religion was 'Other Christian' (88 per cent), and for those who said 'Roman Catholic' (79 per cent).
• Cultural participation across various marital statuses is broadly similar. However, when reading is excluded, single adults were observed to have higher cultural participation (70 per cent) compared to the other marital status groups.
• Cultural participation between various economic statuses is broadly similar. However, when reading is excluded, adults in employment had a larger level of cultural participation (64 per cent) compared to adults permanently retired from work (51 per cent).
• Participation in cultural activities was higher among adults living in rural areas (87 per cent) and lower for those living in urban areas (82 per cent).

Satisfaction with Local Authority Cultural Services

Satisfaction data includes responses from both those who have used services and those who have not. This data is available for most protected and socio-economic characteristics. Data on users' views alone is only available for gender and age.

2020 data show that 47 per cent of adults were very or fairly satisfied with their local authority libraries, and 42 per cent were very or fairly satisfied with museums and galleries and with theatres or concert halls.

Levels of satisfaction with local authority cultural services were considerably higher amongst those who had used the services asked about. 2020 data shows that around nine in ten adults were either very or fairly satisfied with each of the three services (between 89 per cent and 91 per cent).

Data for 2020 also show:

• When asked of both service users and non-users, more women than men were very or fairly satisfied with library services (51 per cent of women compared to 42 per cent of men). For museums and galleries, and theatres or concert halls, satisfaction levels between women and men is broadly similar.
• For service users, satisfaction levels between women and men is broadly similar for the listed cultural services.
• Satisfaction levels were broadly similar between age groups for library services, museums and galleries and theatres or concert halls, satisfaction levels were broadly similar between women and men. However, compared to the average, adults aged between 60 and 74, were statistically more likely to be very or fairly satisfied with library services (52 per cent compared to 47 per cent) and theatres or concert halls (47 per cent compared to 42 per cent). For service users, there was no significant difference between age groups for levels of satisfaction of the listed cultural services.
• Satisfaction levels were broadly similar between adults with some form of qualification for library services, museums and galleries and theatres or concert halls. However, compared to the average, adults with no qualifications, were statistically less likely to feel very or fairly satisfied with library services (37 per cent compared to 47 per cent), museums and galleries (22 per cent compared to 42 per cent) and theatres or concert halls (25 per cent compared to 42 per cent).
• Satisfaction levels were broadly similar for library services, museums and galleries and theatres or concert halls between adults: living in different areas of deprivation; with different levels of net annual household income; that reported having a disability and those that reported having no disability; and of different economic status.
• For both service users and non-users, satisfaction levels were broadly similar between adults of most ethnicities for library services, museums and galleries and theatres or concert halls. However, compared to the average adults of 'White: Other' ethnicity were notably more likely to be very or fairly satisfied about museums and galleries and the least likely to offer no opinion.
• Satisfaction levels were broadly similar between adults of different sexual orientation for library services and theatres or concert halls. However, for museums and galleries, adults that are gay, lesbian or bisexual are significantly more likely to be very or fairly satisfied.
• Satisfaction levels were broadly similar between adults of different religion for museums and galleries and theatres or concert halls. However, for library services, adults of 'Church of Scotland' or 'Other religion' are significantly more likely to be very or fairly satisfied (both 52 per cent) compared to adults with no religion (43 per cent).
• Satisfaction levels were broadly similar between adults of different marital status for museums and galleries and theatres or concert halls. However, for library services, widowed adults are significantly more likely to be very or fairly satisfied (52 per cent) compared to single adults (43 per cent).
• Satisfaction levels were broadly similar between adults living in urban areas and those living in rural areas for library services. However, adults living in urban areas were notably more likely to be very or fairly satisfied with museums and galleries and theatre or concert halls (both 43 per cent) compared to those living in rural areas (35 per cent and 36 per cent respectively).