Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2006: General Report

Current Income Domain

The current income domain measures the proportion of people on low incomes. There are currently no reliable figures for local income distributions so the income domain is based on means tested benefits indicators. Low income is a key cause of deprivation and consequently the income domain has a relatively large weighting in the overall SIMD rank.

Due to changes in the benefits and tax credits systems there have been a number of unavoidable changes to the indicators used to construct the SIMD 2006 income domain (see Annex 2 for details). Comparisons between the 2004 and 2006 domains should, therefore, be interpreted with care.

The 2004 income domain is based on 2001/2 data and the 2006 income domain is based on 2005 data. Information about the indicators used in the income domain is summarised in Annex 2 and covered in detail in the SIMD 2006 Technical Report.

Key Points

• In the SIMD 2006, 35 per cent of people living in the 15% most income deprived areas were income deprived, compared with 10 per cent in the rest of Scotland.
• Inverclyde and Dundee City show relatively large increases in the number of data zones in the 15% most income deprived areas, while North and South Lanarkshire show decreases.
• Within Glasgow City one in four people (25 per cent of the population) are income deprived.
• Across Scotland one in seven people (14 per cent of the population) are income deprived.

Income deprived areas in SIMD 2006

The most income deprived data zone in Scotland is in the Drumchapel area of Glasgow City, where 77 per cent of the population are income deprived. The second most income deprived data zone is in the Craigmillar area of Edinburgh, where 74 per cent of the population are income deprived. Of the five most income deprived data zones in SIMD 2006, two are in Glasgow City, two in Renfrewshire (both in Paisley) and one in the City of Edinburgh.

The greatest concentrations of income deprivation are in Glasgow City, which has the highest proportion (48 per cent) and number (331) of Scotland's 15% most income deprived data zones. Inverclyde has the second highest proportion with 40 data zones (36 per cent) in the 15% most income deprived areas in Scotland. A full list is available in the SIMD 2006 Statistical Compendium.

Income deprived people in SIMD 2006

The 2006 income domain shows that across Scotland 14 per cent of the population (over 700,000 people) are income deprived (see Table 2.9). Within the 15% most income deprived areas, 35 per cent of the population are income deprived compared to 10 per cent in the rest of Scotland. Chart 2.8 shows the distribution of income deprived people by income domain vigintiles for the SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006. Within the 5% most income deprived areas (vigintile one) almost 45 per cent of the population are income deprived compared to vigintile 20 (5% least income deprived areas) where only one per cent of the population are income deprived.

Chart 2.8 Percentage of the total population who are income deprived in SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006, by income domain vigintiles

Source: Total population from General Register Office for Scotland, 2001 Census ( SIMD 2004) and SAPE 2004 ( SIMD 2006)

Glasgow City, where one in every four people (25 per cent, 142,915 people) is income deprived, has the highest proportion and number of income deprived people in Scotland in the SIMD 2006 (see Table 2.9). Over 70 per cent of the income deprived people in Glasgow live in the 15% most income deprived areas in Scotland. A full list is available in the SIMD 2006 Statistical Compendium.

West Dunbartonshire, where one in every five people (19.6 per cent 17,980 people) is income deprived, has the second highest proportion of the population who are income deprived in Scotland. North Lanarkshire has the second highest absolute number of income deprived people in Scotland (53,795 people). East Dunbartonshire has the lowest proportion of population who are income deprived (7.34 per cent).

Change in income deprived areas between SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006.

Despite the differences between the indicators used to construct the 2004 and 2006 income domains the two domains are highly correlated with a Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.97 (see Annex 4). This indicates that although the indicators used are not identical the distribution of income deprived people in the two indices is very similar. However, the number of income deprived people within a data zone may be quite different. Due to the changes to the indicators used, absolute counts of income deprived people from the SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006 can not be fairly compared and only change in rank between the SIMD 2004 and SIMD 2006 income domains, which measures relative change, should be examined. It is possible to analyse change over time for some individual indicators used in the 2006 income domain, but such analysis will not be covered in this report. Some of the individual indicators are available from the Scottish Neighbourhood Statistics website.

Between the 2004 and 2006 SIMD Inverclyde has seen the largest increase in the proportion and number of data zones within the 15% most income deprived areas, with an increase of nine data zones (from 31 data zones to 40 data zones). Dundee City has also seen a relatively large increase (seven data zones). A full list is available in the SIMD 2006 Statistical Compendium.

Table 2.9 Percentage of the total population who are income deprived in the SIMD 2006, by local authority area

Source: Total population from General Register Office for Scotland, SAPE 2004

South Lanarkshire and North Lanarkshire have shown the largest decrease (15 data zones) in the number of data zones in the 15% most income deprived areas in Scotland. Glasgow City showed a large decrease in the number of data zones in the 5% most income deprived data zones in Scotland with 16 less data zones (189 to 173).