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Scottish Household Survey Bulletin No.5

9. A note on definitions

In all tables, percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Nil percent is indicated by a dash (-). Figures between 0% and 0.5% are indicated by a zero (0). Figures between 0.5% and 1.0% are rounded to 1%.

In some tables where figures have been rounded, the sum of constituent items may not always total 100%. In tables where multiple responses are allowed, totals may be more than 100%.

For the purposes of the survey, a household is defined as one person or a group of people living in accommodation as their only or main residence and either sharing at least one meal a day or sharing the living accommodation.

The highest income householder is taken as the household reference person for the first part of the interview. This must be a person in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented or be otherwise responsible for the accommodation.

In households with joint householders, the person with the highest income is taken as the household reference person. If householders have exactly the same income, the older is taken as the household reference person.

The term adult is used to refer to those aged 16 and over (except where otherwise stated).

In each household one of the adult members is randomly selected to take part in the second half of the interview. This person is referred to as the random adult. The random adult is automatically the 'household respondent' in one-adult households and may be the same in households with more than one adult.

The term household income refers to net income (i.e. after taxation and other deductions) from employment, benefits and other sources, which is brought into the household by the highest income householder and/or their spouse or partner. This includes any contribution to household finances made by other household members (e.g. dig money).

While in general, the level of missing data throughout the SHS was minimal, there was an appreciable level of item non-response in relation to the income information. Incomplete data resulted in around 34% of households having no computed total net income. Imputation of income information was therefore carried out. This is a process whereby complete information given by a 'similar' household is used for respondents that are missing information on income. Income is collected as a variety of different components, which are summed to create total net household income. Income was imputed for each component using either Hot Deck imputation, where the sample is divided into subgroups based on relevant characteristics, or Predictive Mean where a statistical model is constructed and the value is predicted using this model. After imputation, 2.5% of households in 1999 were still missing information on income. Income imputation has not yet been undertaken on year 2 data so tables relating to income are based only on 1999 data.

Level of dependency on state benefits. This is based on the model devised for the 1991 Scottish House Condition Survey. Classes were developed to indicate benefit as a proportion of household income. Independent indicates that 0 to 9.9% of income is from benefit, low is 10 to 49.9%, medium is 50 to 89.9% and high is 90% and over. Child benefit has been excluded from this analysis of the SHS data.

Employment status

The household respondent was asked to select which of the following categories best described the current position of each member of the household:

• Full time employee
• Part-time employee
• Self-employed
• Permanently retired from work
• Unemployed and seeking work
• At school
• In further/higher education
• Government work or training scheme
• Permanently sick or disabled
• Unable to work because of short-term illness of injury
• Pre-school
• Looking after the home or family
• Other.

Household type

The household type variable used here is defined as follows:

A single pensioner is one adult of pensionable age and no children

A single parent is an adult of any age and one or more children.

A single adult is an adult of non-pensionable age and no children.

An older smaller household is an adult of non-pensionable age and one of pensionable age and no children, or two adults of pensionable age and no children.

A large adult household is three or more adults and no children.

A small adult household is two adults of non-pensionable age and no children.

A large family is two adults and three or more children or three or more adults and one or more children.

Small family households are two adults and one or two children.

Pensionable age refers to men aged 65 and over and to women aged 60 and over

The household working status is constructed from the economic status information about the highest income householder and, where applicable, his or her spouse/partner. Individuals are included as working where they work full- or part-time or if they are self-employed.

Long-standing limiting illness, health problem or disability

The question "Do you or anyone else in the household have any long-standing illness, health problem or disability which limits your /their daily activity or the work you/they can do?" was asked of the household respondent about each member of the household to establish the prevalence of long-term illness within households. The respondent's own assessment of what constitutes a long-standing illness, health problem or disability was therefore used rather than a medical assessment of illness.

Charitable donations are classified as follows:-

Immediate donations are, for example, money given to a door-to-door collection, street collection, collection at work, TV or radio appeal, pub counter, etc.

Donation through purchase refers to buying at a jumble sale, charity shop or catalogue, buying raffle tickets, paying a subscription or membership, having a bank affinity card, buying charity Christmas cards

Planned donation means donation through covenant, payroll deduction, standing order or 'give as you earn'.

Donation in kind refers to actions such as giving clothes to a charity shop.

Scottish MOSAIC

Scottish MOSAIC is a neighbourhood classification system developed by Experian. It draws on a large number of Census variables, augmented by some published non-Census information, to distinguish between postcodes in terms of types of housing, housing densities and household characteristics. It uses statistical analysis of variables such as home ownership, car ownership, age, health, employment status and occupation to identify types of neighbourhoods with similar characteristics. With ten broad areas (see box 1), subdivided into 47 types, this geodemographic system has been used in both the sampling and analysis of the SHS.

Details of the descriptors used in the 1998/1999 MOSAIC typology are provided in Box 1. Further information about MOSAIC can be obtained from Experian (the company's web site is at www.experian.com).

Box 1: Descriptors of MOSAIC Areas

*The 'descriptors' are those used by Experian and reflect the marketing origins of the MOSAIC classification.

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