Work and Worklessness among Households in Scotland 2009

3. Work and Workless Households in Scotland

• Table 1 shows that in 2008, 58.5 per cent of working age households were working ( i.e. all adults of working age in the household work), 24.2 per cent of households were mixed ( i.e. some adults are working and some are not) and 17.3 per cent of working age households were workless ( i.e. no adults of working age in the household were in work).
• Between 2007 and 2008 the percentage of working households fell by 1.3 percentage points (a decrease of 20,400 households), while the percentage of mixed households increased by 0.8 percentage points (14,000 households) and the percentage of workless households increased by 0.5 percentage points (8,700 households).

• Statistics from 'Poverty and Income inequality in Scotland' ⁴ show that workless individuals are more likely to be in poverty than those in work. However, 6 per cent of individuals in Scotland were in in-work poverty in 2007/8.
• Across Scotland 412,800 working age households have a mixed economic activity, of these: 52,100 are employed and unemployed; 348,000 are employed and inactive; and 12,600 are employed unemployed and inactive.
• Mixed households are more likely to contain dependent children than working or workless households, suggesting that a number of these households are mixed due to one parent having childcare responsibilities.
• The total number of workless households in Scotland was 295,200 in 2008. 71,800 (24.3 per cent) of these workless households had dependent children, and of which 56,500 were lone parent workless households. Section 4 provides more information about the number of children living in workless households.
• Chart 3 shows that the proportion of working age households that are workless varies across local authority areas.
• In 2008, 28.9 per cent of households in Glasgow were workless, this equates to almost 1 in 3 households compared to 9.2 per cent in Aberdeenshire, less than 1 in 10 households.
• The proportion of working age households that are workless is highly correlated with the proportion of the population who are unemployed or inactive

Chart 3. Percentage of working age households which are WORKLESS in Scotland, by local authority area, 2008

Source: Annual Population Survey (Jan-Dec) Household Datasets

Notes: Eilean Siar, Shetland Islands and Orkney Islands are not included as values are below the reliability threshold

• Between 2007 and 2008 the proportion of working age households which are workless increased by in excess of 2 percentage points in the following local authority areas: West Dunbartonshire; North Lanarkshire; and South Lanarkshire. Analysis from the Annual Population Survey person-level datasets show that these 3 local authorities also experienced increases in the proportion of unemployed and inactive people over the year.
• Between 2007 and 2008 the proportion of working age households which are workless decreased by in excess of 2 percentage points in Fife. The proportion of unemployed people in Fife remained unchanged over the year but the proportion of working age inactive people decreased by 1 percentage point between 2007 and 2008.

Chart 4. Change in the percentage of working age households which are WORKLESS in Scotland, by local authority area, 2007- 2008

Source: Annual Population Survey (Jan-Dec) Household Datasets

Notes: * These authorities have larger relative standard errors ( RSE), although the estimates are still considered acceptable. See Annex A for more information on RSEs.

Eilean Siar, Shetland Islands and Orkney Islands are not included as values are below the reliability threshold.

• Time series data showing how the economic activity status of households has changed from 2004 for each local authority is available from the web tables.