Scottish Household Survey 2022: Key Findings

Introduction

The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) is an annual survey of the general population in Scotland, carried out since 1999. It aims to collect reliable and up-to-date information on a range of topics, through a random sample of people in private residences. It is a voluntary and interviewer-led survey.

In 2022, as is typical, the SHS was carried out as a face-to-face interview, primarily administered in people’s homes. This represents a return to the traditional methodology after the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the 2020 and 2021 survey years and necessitated a change in approach.

The SHS collects data that is also included in separate publications for Scottish Survey Core Questions, Transport and Travel in Scotland and the Scottish House Condition Survey. This publication contains the key findings of the social survey.

The 2022 results are published as official statistics (see below). This is in contrast to 2020 and 2021, which were published as experimental statistics. This was due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in the 2020 and 2021 survey years having a different methodology, lower response rates and a change in the profile of respondents compared to typical survey years. Data relating to 2020 and 2021 can be found in their respective key findings reports and supplementary documents.

Around 10,500 households were interviewed for the SHS 2022 survey, between 11 March 2022 and 6 March 2023. Response rates were lower than they had been pre-pandemic (2019 and earlier). This could potentially have been accompanied by a small change in the pattern of non-response to the survey, which is discussed in more detail in the accompanying methodology report. In general, these differences are unlikely to have a significant impact on the reported results, and the 2022 results are broadly comparable to 2019 and earlier years. For those results where an impact is more likely, this is highlighted in the relevant chapter and as notes to the data tables.

Throughout this report, tables are referenced. These are published in Excel format as supporting documents to the report, and include specific results for groups in the population (e.g. men and women, urban and rural areas). Some of the differences between groups may be due to random sampling variation i.e. chance. Similarly, some apparent differences between 2019 and 2022 results may occur by chance. We use standard statistical tests of significance to determine the likelihood of differences being due to chance. When this report refers to differences between groups or years, these differences are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level unless explicitly stated otherwise. Some differences between groups in the Excel tables that appear large may not be mentioned in this report, because they are not statistically significant.

An official statistics publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.