Work and Worklessness among Households in Scotland 2009

1. Summary

This publication explores the economic activity status of households in Scotland and its local authorities since 2004 using data from the Annual Population Survey ( APS) household datasets. There are three categories of households, as explained in Box 1 below.

Box 1. Key Definitions

Estimate on the economic status of households are for only those households that includes at least one person of working-age.

A working household is one where all individuals aged 16 and over are in employment.

A mixed household is one where at least one person aged 16 and over is in employment and at least one other is either unemployed or inactive.

A workless household is one where no individuals aged 16 and over are in employment.

The latest APS data covers the period January to December 2008 so it is important to note that the APS household data for 2008 does not necessarily take into account the full extent of the economic downturn as Scotland officially entered recession from the third quarter of 2008 ³.

Some of the main findings from the publication are:

• In 2008, the workless household rate (where no adults in the household are working) in Scotland was 17.3 per cent, an increase of 0.5 percentage points over the year. This varied from 28.9 per cent of households in Glasgow being workless to 9.2 per cent in Aberdeenshire.
• The working household rate (where all adults in the household are working) was 58.5 per cent in Scotland in 2008, down 1.3 percentage points from 2007.
• The proportion of households in Scotland where some adults are working and some are not ( mixed households) increased by 0.8 percentage points over the year and now stands at 24.2 per cent in 2008.
• In 2008, 13.7 per cent of children in Scotland (almost 1 in 7 children) living in workless households, a decrease of 1.2 percentage points over the year. In Glasgow, 24.5 per cent of children were in a workless household, almost 1 in 4 children.