Scotland
Concentrations of low income
Key points
- 35% of working-age people receive out-of-work benefits in the areas with the highest concentrations. This compares with 12% in areas with average concentrations.
- Around 40% of working-age recipients of key out-of-work benefits live in a fifth of small areas, whilst the other 60% live outside of these areas.
Graph 1: Rates
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Graph 2: Shares
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Definitions and data sources
This indicator examines how the pattern of recipiency of key out-of-work benefits by working-age people varies at a small area level. It does so by placing the 6,500 small areas ('data zones') in Scotland into five equal groups according to the proportion of their working-age population who are in receipt of such benefits. The benefits included are Jobseeker's Allowance, Income Support, Incapacity Benefit, Severe Disablement Allowance, and Carer's Allowance and, if someone is receiving more than one of these benefits, they are only counted once.
The first graph shows the extent to which rates of recipiency vary between the five groups and the second graph shows the proportion of the total recipients who are in each group.
The data source for both graphs is the DWP Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study. The data is for February 2008. Small area population estimates for 2006 (the latest available) have been used as the denominator.
Overall adequacy of the indicator: medium. The underlying data is a full count and is considered to be very reliable. But the data is a count of people in receipt of key out-of-work benefits rather than a count of people in low income. So, for example, it excludes all people in low pay and includes all recipients of out-of-work benefits even if they have some private income.
External links
- See the Scottish Poverty Information Unit for more on income poverty in Scotland.