Scottish Government

Poverty and income inequality in Scotland: 2007/08

This publication supersedes 'Scottish Households Below Average Income 2006/07' which was published in June 2008. It presents annual estimates of the proportion and number of children, working age adults and pensioners living in low income households in Scotland and the distribution of household income across Scotland. The estimates are used to monitor progress towards UK and Scottish Government targets to reduce poverty and income inequality. The data published for the first time here are for the financial year April 2007 to March 2008.

A pdf printable version of this publication is available to download here

An Excel file containing figures used in this publication is available to download here

Contents

1. Key points

2. Income inequality - including the Scottish Goverment Solidarity Purpose Target

3. Poverty - including child, adult and pensioner poverty and in-work poverty

4. Distribution of income - including income trends, income distribution and income decile charts

5. Tables

6. Frequently asked questions and further information

• Overall, levels of poverty and income inequality remained fairly stable between 2004/05 and 2007/08. The year-on-year changes highlighted below are all within the margins of sampling error for the survey upon which they are based ¹.
• Between 2006/07 and 2007/08 the proportion of individuals in relative poverty ² in Scotland remained at 17 percent of the population.
• The proportion of children in relative poverty fell from 21 to 20 percent of children in Scotland.
• The proportion of pensioners in relative poverty increased from 20 to 21 percent of pensioners.
• The proportion of Working Age Adults in relative poverty increased from 14 to 15 percent of working age adults.
• Between 2006/07 and 2007/08 the proportion of total income received by those in the bottom three income deciles fell from 14 to 13 percent.

All the figures presented in this report are derived from the Department for Work and Pensions' Family Resources Survey, Households Below Average Income dataset. Comparable UK income and poverty figures are published on the same day by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). See the DWP website for further information: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/hbai.asp

Further analysis of these figures will be published on the Income and Poverty website http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/incomepoverty

[1] For more detail see 'How reliable are the figures presented here?' in Annex 2: Frequently Asked Questions

[2] Relative poverty before housing costs - for more detail on definitions see Annex 2: Frequently Asked Questions