Scottish Government

5 Economic Activity

INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the economic situation and opportunity of people in Scotland, through sustainable economic growth. ⁴⁴ The Scottish Household Survey ( SHS) monitors the current economic situation and the characteristics of individuals and households in different economic activity categories. The information gathered in the SHS about the current economic situation of members of the household is reported by the respondent to the 'household' part of the interview and may not conform to official definitions of employment and unemployment. The SHS is not directly comparable with the Labour Force Survey ( LFS) - the official source of employment data in the UK. The SHS has questions on these topics only for selecting the data of particular groups, such as working adults or those who are permanently retired from work, for further analysis or for use as background variables when analysing other topics.

In this chapter, the current economic situation of adult men and women is considered. This is followed by an examination of the economic situation of working households, starting with the number of working adults within households. In households with adults of working age, the current economic situation is further analysed by gender and whether an adult has a long standing illness, health problem or disability. The socio-economic classification of working households is also examined. Finally, this chapter explores the current economic situation of women of working age, specifically investigating the impact of women's marital status and whether there are children present in the household.

CURRENT ECONOMIC SITUATION

Figure 5.1 shows the current economic situation of adults by gender. Sixty-two per cent of men and 48% of women are currently in work. In addition, around one in eight (12%) men and one in eleven (9%) women are looking for work or are in some form of education or training preparatory to work. Virtually all of the remainder are unavailable for work (25% of men and 41% of women) either currently, due to them looking after the home or family, or because they are permanently sick or disabled, or permanently retired.

Almost half (49%) of all men and 29% of women are in full-time employment. Women are more often in part-time employment than men (17% compared with 4%). In contrast self-employment is more common among men than women (9% and 3% respectively).

Although there are relatively high levels of both men and women in work, there remains some evidence of the traditional model of caring for home and family being a female role. Eleven per cent of women report that they are looking after home and family compared with 1% of men.

Almost one-in-five men (19%) and just over a quarter (26%) of women are permanently retired from work. The higher proportion of retired women arises as a consequence of their longer life expectancy and the lower retirement age for women.

Figure 5.1: Current economic situation of adults ⁴⁵

WORKING HOUSEHOLDS

In this section the focus is on working households. Firstly, the number of adults in paid employment ⁴⁶ in households is examined. Subsequently, adults of working age are investigated in more detail.

Adults in paid employment

As Figure 5.2 shows, in Scotland as a whole, over six in ten households include at least one adult in paid employment. This is made up of a little over a third of households (34%) containing two or more adults in paid employment and 28% having one. The remaining households (38%) contain no adults in paid employment.

The number of working adults in a household varies according to the deprivation levels of the area in which they are situated. ⁴⁷ A slight majority of households in the 15% most deprived of areas include no adults in paid employment (52%). Conversely the majority of households in the rest of Scotland contain one or more working adult (64% compared with 36% having no adults in paid employment).

Figure 5.2: Number of adults in paid employment by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation
2007/2008 data, Households (base: Most deprived 15%, 3,876; Rest of Scotland, 23,361; All Scotland 27,237)

Current economic situation of working age adults

Not all households contain adults of working age, ⁴⁸ so it is useful to look at the current economic situation of men and women in this category. As Table 5.1 shows, men of working age are employed predominantly either full-time (59%) or are self-employed (10%). Taken together with the relatively small proportion of working age men employed part-time, this means that around three-quarters (73%) of adult men of working age are currently engaged in some form of paid work. Six per cent is permanently sick or disabled.

Women's participation in the labour market has increased over recent years. Almost two-thirds (65%) of working age women are in some form of paid work. Like men, the majority of women in paid work are in full-time employment (39%). Unlike men, the next most common option among women is part-time employment; 22% of working age women work part-time. Fourteen per cent of working age women do not participate in the labour market because they are looking after their home or family.

It is relatively uncommon for men or women of working age to be permanently retired from work (4% males; 1% females). Of course, this will under-represent all those who have taken early retirement as some who do so will subsequently take up other employment opportunities.

Table 5.1: Current economic situation of adults of working age by gender
Column percentages, 2007/2008 data

Still focusing on adults of working age, it is possible to compare the differing economic situations of the adults who have a long-standing illness, health problem or disability that limits their daily activities, with those of the rest of the adult population (Table 5.2). Over one-third (34%) of adults of working age with a long-standing illness, health problem or disability are permanently sick or disabled. Additionally, 5% are currently unable to work due to short term illness or injury, compared with less than 1% of those in the 'other' economic situation group.

Table 5.2: Current economic situation of adults of working age by long-standing limiting illness, health problem or disability
Column percentages, 2007/2008 data

Adjusting the figures to remove those who say they are permanently sick or disabled, ⁴⁹ enables an examination of whether the economic situation of those who remain differs from the rest of the working age population. The key differences in current economic situation between those who have a long-standing illness, health problem or disability (excluding the permanently sick and disabled) and those who do not are:

• Working-full time (34% of those with a long-standing illness, health problem or disability compared with 54% of the rest of the working age population)
• Looking after the home/family (15% compared with 7%)
• Permanently retired from work (10% compared with 2%)
• Unemployed and seeking work (8% compared with 4%)

So, adults of working age with a long-standing illness, health problem or disability, who are not permanently sick or disabled, are less often in full-time employment and more often looking after the home or family, permanently retired from work or unemployed than are other adults of working age.

Socio-economic classification of working age adults

The SHS collects information about the current or past employment of the Highest Income Householder and the random adult (if different). The information collected is used to classify households and adults using the National Statistics Socio-Economic and Standard Industrial Classifications ⁵⁰ ( NS-SEC; NS-SIC). Table 5.3 focuses on working adults of working age, comparing the socio-economic classification of those who are self-employed, employed full-time and in part-time employment.

Unsurprisingly, just over two-thirds (69%) of self-employed people are classified as 'small employers and own account workers' while most of the remainder (26% of self-employed working adults of working age) are in professional occupations.

Managerial and professional occupations are a little more common among full-time working adults of working age than are lower supervisory and technical, semi-routine and routine occupations; almost half (45%) of such adults are employed in the former, while four in ten (41%) are employed in the latter roles.

In particular, there is a higher concentration of part-time employment in semi-routine occupations (32% of part-time employees compared with 13% of full-time employees and 2% of self-employed adults of working age). After semi-routine the most common occupations for those in part-time employment are lower managerial and professional and intermediate (20% and 19% respectively).

Table 5.3: Socio-Economic Classification ( NS-SEC) by economic situation
Column percentages, 2007/2008 data

Table 5.4 considers how NS-SEC varies between working age women and men. A higher proportion of women than men work in lower managerial and professional, intermediate and in semi-routine occupations. In contrast, men are more often employed in lower supervisory and technical and in routine occupations and, reflecting the higher levels of self-employment among men, to be small employers or own account workers.

Table 5.4: Socio-Economic Classification ( NS-SEC) by gender
Column percentages, 2007/2008 data

Women of working age

The final section of this chapter focuses on the current economic situation of women of working age, examining the difference in situation firstly according to whether there are children in the household and then by their current marital status.

As Table 5.1 demonstrated previously, the majority of women of working age are in some form of employment.

Table 5.5 shows that this remains the case regardless of whether there are children in the household or not; 60% of working age women with children are employed or self-employed, rising to 68% of working age women without children in the household.

The main differences between the two groups of working age women are that a higher proportion of those with no children in the household are employed full-time (49% compared with 26% of those where children are present) while, unsurprisingly, a higher proportion who have children in the household are looking after the home or family (25% compared with 6% of those with no children present).

Table 5.5: Current economic situation of women by presence of children in the household
Column percentages, 2007/2008 data

The different economic situation of women of working age according to their current marital status broadly reflects the links between age and marital status ( Chapter 2) and between economic situation and presence of children previously discussed (Table 5.5). Table 5.6 shows, for example, a higher proportion of married working age women are in part-time employment (30%) or looking after the home and family (17%) than any other group. Just under a fifth (19%) of women of working age who are single are in higher or further education, reflecting the relatively high proportion of younger people (16-24) who are in this category ( Chapter 2). Over half (52%) of women who are cohabiting are in full-time employment.

Those who have previously been in partnerships of some kind who are widowed or bereaved, or are separated, divorced or whose partnership has been annulled, are more likely to be permanently sick or disabled than any other women of working age.

Table 5.6: Current economic situation of women by marital status
Column percentages, 2007/2008 data

From June 2007 'Married' was changed to 'Married and living with spouse'.