1. Main points
In 2014, the areas with the highest percentage of workless households tended to be located outside of the south of England
However, not all locations outside of the south of England had high percentages of workless households; 7 of the 40 areas with the lowest in 2014 were in Scotland, the Midlands and the north of England
In 2014, Liverpool had the highest percentage of workless households (30.3%) and was one of 8 counties and unitary authorities in Great Britain where more than a quarter of households were workless
West Berkshire had the lowest percentage of workless households in 2014 (6.7%), one of 15 counties and unitary authority areas where fewer than a tenth of households were workless
In recent years, there have been falls in the percentage of workless households in most areas of Great Britain. Over four-fifths of counties and unitary authority areas saw a decrease between 2009, just after the economic downturn, and 2014
In more than three-quarters of counties and unitary authorities in Great Britain, the percentage of children in workless households was lower in 2014 than it was in 2009
2. Abstract
This bulletin provides statistics on the economic status of UK households at a local level and the people living in them. The statistics are from the Annual Population Survey (APS), cover the period January to December 2014 and only include households where at least 1 person is aged 16 to 64 years old.
Due to the larger sample size at local level within the APS, these statistics provide the most timely and highest quality estimates of the economic status of households for local areas and other sub-regional geographical breakdowns within Great Britain.
At a regional level, the larger sample size of the APS allows a comparison of reasons why people within workless households are not in employment.
Apart from this exception, the most up-to-date analysis of the economic status of households at a national and regional level is available in the bulletin, Working and workless households, 2015. These statistics come from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), cover the period April to June 2015, include data for the same quarter in earlier years and are consistent with the headline national figure.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge contributions from James Cooper, Matthew Bridge and Maryam Baluch.
Back to table of contents3. Introduction
Main definitions
This statistical bulletin uses a number of main definitions:
Households: For the purposes of this bulletin, estimates only include those households where at least 1 person is aged 16 to 64.
Student households are households where all adults are aged 16 to 24 and in full-time education. The definition excludes households where all members are in education but some members are aged 25 years or more. People in full-time education can also be in employment.
Working households are households, as defined above and where all members aged 16 or over are employed.
Workless households are households, as defined above and where no-one aged 16 or over is in employment. These members may be unemployed or inactive. Inactive members may be unavailable to work because of, for example, family commitments, retirement or study, or they may be unable to work through sickness or disability.
Mixed households are households, as defined above, which contain both working and workless members, aged 16 or over.
Data source
The source for the statistics in this bulletin is the Annual Population Survey (APS) household dataset. These data are available for January to December and they do not contain information on earnings. All members of the household are weighted equally in the household datasets.
Further information on quality of the data within the Annual Population Survey is available via Labour Market Quality and Information on our website.
This bulletin focuses on county and unitary authority level analysis. Data on the economic status of households for districts within counties and at NUTS levels (2 and 3) are contained in reference tables, alongside consistent aggregations within the APS to regions in England and countries within the UK. This bulletin also includes analysis and data about reasons for non-employment in workless households at a regional level.
How these data should be interpreted
The APS household datasets can be used for analysis of family or household characteristics at the country, regional or local level. This statistical bulletin particularly focuses on the economic status of households and household members in counties and unitary authority areas. For example:
the number of households with all, some or no people in employment
the number of adults in each of these household types
the number of children in each of these household types
Analysis of Labour Force Survey (LFS) household datasets is released alongside this bulletin in Working and workless households, 2015 which uses household data from the LFS covering the period April to June 2015.
The LFS data should be used for the most up-to-date analysis of the economic status of households for:
the UK as a whole
England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
the regions of England (except for analysis of reasons for non-employment in workless households)
The main uses of the data, main users and reasons for production
Users of the data in this bulletin include government departments, devolved administrations, local authorities, independent research organisations and members of the media and general public. These data are used to understand how the economic status of households at a local level compares to that in other local areas within the UK and to examine patterns of change in the data over time.
Back to table of contents4. Workless households
In 2014, the areas with the highest percentage of workless households (those which include at least 1 person aged 16 to 64 and where no-one aged 16 or over is in work) tended to be located outside of the south of England. Figure 1 maps the broad pattern among counties and unitary authorities in Great Britain.
Figure 1: Percentage of workless households, counties and unitary authorities, Great Britain, 2014
Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics
In 2014, Liverpool had the highest percentage of workless households (30.3%), and was one of 8 counties or unitary authority areas in Great Britain where more than a quarter of households were workless. The others were Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Hartlepool in the North East, Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire in Scotland, Wolverhampton in the West Midlands and Blackpool in the North West.
The percentage in Liverpool was more than 4 times that in West Berkshire (6.7%, the lowest in Great Britain). The latter was one of 15 counties and unitary authority areas where fewer than a tenth of households were workless.
The full data are in the accompanying reference tables and show that there were 39 counties or unitary authority areas outside of the south of England (London and the South East, South West and East of England regions) that had a higher percentage of workless households than anywhere within these 4 regions.
On the other hand, not all of the 40 areas with the lowest percentages were in the south of England. Although 33 were, there were also 3 in Scotland, 3 in the Midlands and 1 in the north of England. None of the 40 were in Wales.
Figure 2 compares the extremes of the percentages of workless households by charting the 5 counties or unitary authorities with the lowest and the five with the highest.
Figure 2: Percentage of workless households, top and bottom 5 counties and unitary authorities, Great Britain, 2014
Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics
As the Annual Population Survey is a sample survey, all estimates from it and, hence, all specific rankings and their year on year changes are subject to sampling variability. However, most of the areas with the highest and lowest percentages of workless households in 2014 had similar rankings in previous years. In particular, for all years from 2006 to 2014, Glasgow City and Liverpool were among the top 10 counties and unitary authorities and West Berkshire and Wokingham among the bottom 10 when comparing the percentages of workless households. Rankings for 2006 to 2014 are included in Table E (110 Kb Excel sheet) of the reference tables.
Changes in workless households since 2009
In the majority of local authority areas, the percentage of workless households has fallen in recent years. Figure 3 maps the 2009 data using the same scales as used for 2014 data in Figure 1 to allow comparisons. In total, over four-fifths of these areas had a lower percentage of workless households in 2014 than 5 years earlier.
Figure 3: Percentage of workless households, counties and unitary authorities, Great Britain, 2009
Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics
The effect of excluding student households
The reference tables accompanying this release include tables of data that exclude student households (where all adults are aged 16 to 24 and in full-time education).
In these tables, most of the counties and unitary authority areas with the highest and lowest percentages of workless households in 2014 were the same as those when student households were included. In particular, the top 5 and bottom 5 local areas in Figure 2 remain the same when student households were excluded. In most counties and unitary authority areas, the percentage of workless non-student households was slightly lower than the percentage of all households, reflecting the greater likelihood that student households were workless.
Back to table of contents5. Working and mixed households
In 2014, the counties and unitary authority areas with high percentages of workless households were not necessarily those with low percentages of working households and vice versa. This was due to the uneven distribution of mixed households across Great Britain. For example, if an area has a high proportion of workless households, it could also have a relatively high percentage of working households if it had a lower than average proportion of mixed households.
As an illustration, the areas in Figure 4 with lower percentages of working households are not exactly the same as those in Figure 1 with higher percentages of workless households, particularly in parts of London.
Figure 4: Percentage of working households, counties and unitary authorities, Great Britain, 2014
Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics
The percentage of working households in 2014 ranged from 65.0% in Aberdeen City to 38.4% in Newham. Figure 5 compares the extremes of the percentages by charting the 5 counties or unitary authorities with the lowest percentages and the 5 with the highest. In 2014, Liverpool was the only area that was in the bottom 5 for working households and the top 5 for workless households.
Figure 5: Percentage of working households top and bottom 5 counties and unitary authorities, Great Britain, 2014
Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics
The main reason for differences between the geographic distributions in Figures 1 and 4 was the large variation among counties and unitary authority areas of the percentages of mixed households. Figure 6 compares the extremes of the percentages of mixed households. The 5 counties and unitary authorities with the highest percentages of mixed households in 2014 were in London while the 4 with the lowest were in Scotland.
Figure 6: Percentage of mixed households, top and bottom five counties and unitary authorities, Great Britain, 2014
Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics
A household can be mixed for a number of reasons. Some economic inactivity is a result of a personal decision such as taking early retirement or some instances of opting to look after home or family on a full-time basis, while other inactivity results from circumstances, such as sickness or disability. The map in Figure 7 illustrates the distribution of mixed households in 2014 across Great Britain.
Figure 7: Percentage of mixed households; counties and unitary authorities, Great Britain, 2014
6. Children in workless households
The reference tables accompanying this release include the percentages of adults and children in each of the 3 types of households (working, mixed and workless). The counties and unitary authority areas with higher percentages of adults in workless households are mainly those with higher percentages of workless households but this is not necessarily true for children in workless households.
The map in Figure 8 highlights that the areas with the highest percentages of children in workless households in 2014 were not identical to those with the highest percentages of workless households overall. This is due to an uneven distribution of children across the different types of household in some areas.
Figure 8: Percentage of children in workless households; counties and unitary authorities, Great Britain, 2014
Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics
Figure 9 compares the extremes of the percentages of children in workless households, showing the ten counties and unitary authority areas with the highest and lowest. Liverpool ranked highest in 2014 with more than 30% of children living in a workless household.
Figure 9: Percentage of children in workless households, top and bottom 5 counties and unitary authorities, Great Britain, 2014
Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics
Changes in the percentages of children in workless households since 2009
As the data are from a sample survey, all estimates and, hence, all year on year changes are subject to sampling variability. This is especially true for subsets of the data such as children in workless households. However, a comparison of the latest data for each of the 201 areas mapped in Figure 8 with the equivalent figures from 2009 gives an indication of patterns of change during the 5 year period.
In more than three-quarters of counties and unitary authorities in Great Britain (153), the percentage of children in workless households was lower in 2014 than it was in 2009. In 24 of these areas, the 2014 figure was more than 10 percentage points lower, including in 12 London unitary authorities. No area had an increase above 7.0 percentage points.
Back to table of contents7. Reasons for worklessness in workless households
The larger sample size of the Annual Population Survey, when compared to the Labour Force Survey, allows for a national and regional analysis of the reasons why working age adults in workless households were not in employment. “Working age“ in this analysis is 16 to 64 and workless households, as before, include at least 1 person aged 16 to 64 and have no-one aged 16 or over in work.
In 2014, the most common reason for worklessness in such households in the UK was sickness or disability and this was particularly prevalent in Northern Ireland where it was the reason for almost two-fifths of people in workless households, as Figure 10 shows.
Figure 10: Reasons for worklessness in workless households, 2014, by country
Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics
The reasons for worklessness in workless households varied across the English regions in 2014 as Figure 11 shows.
Figure 11: Reasons for worklessness in workless households, 2014, by English region
