Updates to SIMD Income and Employment Domains

Key Points

Overall

• Between SIMD 2009+1 and SIMD 2009+2 levels of both employment and income deprivation have fallen slightly across Scotland but remain above those observed in SIMD 2009.
• The relative picture across Scotland remains similar to that seen in SIMD 2009 and in SIMD 2009+1.

Employment domain

• 12.9% of the working age population in Scotland are employment deprived according to the latest SIMD employment domain. This is down slightly from 13.1% in SIMD 2009+1 but remains above the SIMD 2009 level (11.6%).
• According to the latest SIMD employment domain figures, the percentage of the working age population who are employment deprived has decreased in 21 of the 32 Scottish local authorities since last year. However it remains above the SIMD 2009 level in every local authority.
• Renfrewshire has seen the largest increase in the percentage of working age people who are employment deprived since SIMD 2009 - a rise of 2.3 percentage points (from 12.6% to 14.9%).
• Glasgow City continues to have a higher proportion of its working age population experiencing employment deprivation than any other local authority at 19.2% (the same as in SIMD 2009+1 and an increase from 17.5% in SIMD 2009).
• In contrast, 6.7% of the working age population of Aberdeenshire and 6.8% in the Shetland Islands are employment deprived.
• Glasgow City has returned to being the local authority with the largest proportion of its datazones in the 15% most employment deprived, replacing Inverclyde. 41% of Glasgow's datazones are in the 15% most employment deprived - up slightly from 40% in SIMD 2009+1.

Income domain

• 16.2% of the population of Scotland are income deprived according to the latest SIMD income domain figures. This represents a small decrease from SIMD 2009+1 when 16.3% were income deprived but an increase from SIMD 2009 when the figure was 15.1%.
• Between SIMD 2009+1 and SIMD 2009+2, 15 local authorities saw a small decrease in the percentage of income deprived people with a further 6 experiencing no change and the remainder experiencing small increases.
• North Ayrshire has experienced the largest increase in the percentage of the population who are income deprived since SIMD 2009 - a rise of 1.9 percentage points (from 19.2% to 21.1%).
• Glasgow City continues to have a higher proportion of its population experiencing income deprivation than any other local authority at 26.4% (a decrease from 26.8% in SIMD 2009+1).
• In contrast, 8.3% of the population of Shetland Islands is income deprived.
• Glasgow remains the local authority with the highest share of its datazones in the 15% most income deprived although this has fallen. Forty-three per cent (300) of its datazones are in the 15% most income deprived, down from 45% (310) in SIMD 2009+1 and 47% (324) in SIMD 2009.