This publication compares results from the 2022 and 2011 censuses, looking at how key health and socioeconomic indicators changed across the decade, especially for people living in the most deprived areas. These indicators include self-reported health and disability, migration status, ethnicity, employment, education, and housing. This report is published as part of the Scottish Health Equity Research Unit (SHERU).
Scotland in 2001 was remarkably different from Scotland in 2011. Between 2001 and 2011, the population grew by more than 200,000 people. Life expectancies increased by more than three years for men and around two years for women. Household incomes grew by 18% in real terms. These years also marked a massive cultural shift: internet access, for instance, grew from 36% of all households in 2001 to 77% in 2011. In spite of this, Scotland had remarkable inequalities in health outcomes, with the lowest life expectancy in Western Europe in both 2001 and 2011, and with wide differences between people living in deprived and non-deprived areas.
The Scottish Census, typically taken every ten years, allows the country to take stock of its population and to examine how various cultural, social, and economic factors have changed. Although the most recent census was conducted in 2022, preliminary results have only recently been made available, with publications on various topics rolling out across 2024.
Given the changes that occurred between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, we would expect a to see a very different Scotland in 2022. After all, the decade between the two years saw massive changes in the UK: in 2011, Scotland was only a few months into the UK government’s austerity period; 2016 saw the UK exiting the EU; and 2020 was marked by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Scotland of 2022 continues to be characterised by inequities in health outcomes, with life expectancies in the wealthiest parts of the country exceeding those in the poorest by more than a decade. These inequalities have failed to improve since 2011, growing by only a few months for men and women alike. This stagnation in health outcomes is paralleled by a stagnation in average household incomes, which grew by a paltry 4% in real terms over the decade. The Scottish population has grown, but the growth has slowed compared to the decade prior, driven by an increase in immigration alongside a decrease in births.
The census topic publications offer a high-level picture of changes in health and changes in socioeconomic determinants of health, including demography, disability, housing, education, and work. Data across these topics are available for small areas, which allows us to examine these determinants by area deprivation from the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD).
Most significantly, people in Scotland in 2022 were more likely to report that they are in poor health than they were in 2011. The number of people with mental health conditions skyrocketed over the decade, especially among young women.
Alongside this trend, people were more likely to exit the labour market to care for their home and family or due to ill health. The burden of unpaid care grew between 2011 and 2022, and people in deprived areas were significantly more likely to provide unpaid care.
Migrants and people from ethnic minority groups were more likely to live in the most deprived 20% of areas than the general population. These groups are frequently absent from Scottish data, making it difficult to understand differences in health outcomes. This is often due to small sample sizes or incomplete record-keeping, yet ethnic minorities (including white minorities) now make up nearly 12% of the Scottish population, and 10% of the Scottish population is foreign-born. In cities, this proportion was much higher.
People in Scotland, on average, were more likely to have earned a degree-level qualification or equivalent, although people in deprived areas are still more likely to have no qualifications than a university degree. Home ownership rates are broadly similar to 2011, while people are less likely to live in overcrowded homes.
We are not yet able to see how health interacts with the other socioeconomic determinants alongside deprivation. In early 2025, the census will release tables which show multiple variables at once, allowing us to understand how health interacts with socioeconomic indicators in addition to and alongside deprivation. The currently available single variable publications nevertheless provide us with an interesting glimpse into how Scotland has changed as a whole, and how life in Scotland’s most vulnerable areas have changed.
Key Findings
People living in deprived areas were…
- More likely to report that their health is bad or very bad compared to 2011 and to people living in non-deprived areas. The gap in outcomes between deprived and non-deprived areas widened since 2011.
- More likely to report a health condition or disability, including a mental health condition, than people living in non-deprived areas. They were also more likely to report bad health and mental health conditions than they were in 2011, and gaps in outcomes between deprived and non-deprived areas widened since 2011.
- More likely to be migrants and from minority ethnic backgrounds:
- Migrants were more likely to live in deprived areas than people born in the UK. Migrants who lived in the UK for 2-10 years were the most likely to live in deprived areas, and a higher proportion of these migrants lived in deprived areas than in 2011.
- People from Black African and Polish backgrounds were the most likely to live in deprived areas, with well over a third of their communities residing in these neighbourhoods.
- More likely to be economically inactive due to ill health and disability compared to the general population and compared to 2011.
- More likely to be economically inactive to care for their home or family, more likely to provide unpaid care in general, and more likely to spend more than 35 hours a week on caring responsibilities compared to people in non-deprived areas. All of these rates increased since 2011.
- More likely to have no qualifications than the general population, although this improved since 2011. The gap between deprived and non-deprived populations also narrowed.
- Less likely to have a degree level qualification than the general population. This has also improved since 2011, although the gap between people in deprived and non-deprived widened over this time.
- Less likely to own a home than people from non-deprived areas, and slightly less likely to own a home than they were in 2011. The gap between the two areas has stayed roughly the same since 2011.
- More likely to live in overcrowded homes than the general population, although this has dropped substantially since 2011.
Authors
Allison is a Fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute. She specialises in health, socioeconomic inequality and labour market dynamics.
David is a Senior Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute. Previously, he worked in a range of analytical positions across the public sector, primarily as a statistician.