Office for National Statistics

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/programmesandprojects/onscentres/centreforequalitiesandinclusion

Our analytical work spans a wide range of cross-cutting topic areas including:

We aim to build on the measurement framework developed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, exploring how protected characteristic groups are affected by current social and policy issues and how multiple characteristics come together to shape people's experiences. Our aim is to develop multidisciplinary project teams to take this forward. If you have an idea for collaboration or would like to receive regular updates from us, please get in touch.

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Past experiences of housing difficulties in the UK, 2018: this October 2020 release uses data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey in the UK in 2018, which included an ad-hoc module on past experiences of housing difficulties. This analysis looks at past experiences of housing difficulties to understand the extent, causes, methods of exit, current situations, and associated factors. This is the first time we have used retrospective data to examine housing difficulties.

Coronavirus and the social impacts on young and older people in Great Britain: these two publications explore indicators from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey on the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on young and older people in Great Britain. This release used five waves of survey results covering the period from 3 April 2020 to 10 May 2020.

Coronavirus and the social impacts on disabled people in Great Britain, July 2020: this article provides an update to the May 2020 article and allows for a comparison of how the social impacts on disabled people have changed when compared with earlier in the pandemic. The analysis is based on indicators from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey. Insights from qualitative research commissioned by the Cabinet Office Disability Unit and conducted by Policy Lab help illustrate how these indicators can be experienced by disabled people in day-to-day life.

Exploring religion in England and Wales: these articles explore the data available on people of different religious identities across a number of areas of life. Indications of possible differences between groups are provided and the quality of the data is considered along with plans to build on its strengths and address its limitations.

In January we updated the Equalities data audit, which looks at the availability of data across the protected characteristics in the Equality Act (2010). This latest release has improved the information contained within the audit, includes additional sources of data, and has an additional column containing the data owner. The Centre will continue to develop and maintain the audit as a resource alongside exploring ways of providing an explorable tool to enable the information in the audit to be presented in a more user-friendly format. We greatly welcome any feedback or amendments to the data audit.

Milestones: journeying through adulthood: this December 2019 release builds on an earlier one in 2019 that revealed that the typical milestones experienced by young people were happening later than they used to, and sometimes in a different order. This article explores if the same is true for the significant milestones that happen later in life.

Research report on population estimates by ethnic group and religion: this research report presents a method for producing population estimates by ethnic group and by religion, using Annual Population Survey (APS) and census data. It is the first time that illustrative estimates of the population by religion have been produced in this way. New illustrative population estimates by ethnic group are also included, which are based on a three-year Annual Population Survey (APS) pooled dataset, in contrast to the single year of data used in the original research outputs.

Disability pay gaps in the UK: 2018: this report presents analysis on the disability pay gap for the first time, using a new earnings weight on the Annual Population Survey (APS). This allows for more detailed analysis of disability and pay than was previously possible.

Improving disability data in the UK: 2019: the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has explored outcomes for disabled people across a number of areas of life, through a series of bulletins. This work aims to present comparable information that uses the Government Statistical Services' (GSS) harmonised definition of disability, and as far as possible presents UK analysis alongside intersections with other protected characteristics.

Exploring the UK's digital divide - this article explores the scale of digital exclusion in the UK and its impact, the characteristics and circumstances of those who are not currently using the internet, how internet use and digital skills vary for different groups of the population and barriers to digital inclusion.

A summary of the findings from a scoping study commissioned jointly with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and carried out by Heriot-Watt University in association with Kantar Public - the study investigates existing and alternative ways in which people not living in private households can be counted in measures of living standards and personal well-being.

Children's and young people's experiences of loneliness - analysis of children's and young people's views, experiences and suggestions to overcome loneliness, using in-depth interviews, the Community Life Survey 2016 to 2017 and the Good Childhood Index Survey 2018.

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Our aim is to work with others to make better use of existing data sources and to develop new ones where necessary, taking advantage of the opportunities arising from the Digital Economy Act 2017 to ensure that the right data are available to address the main social and policy questions about fairness and equity in UK society. The Centre continues to take stock of existing data on the full range of protected characteristic groups in the Equality Act 2010 and works collaboratively with others to make resources for equalities analysis more accessible to a wide range of researchers.

The Centre is also responsible for the Equalities data audit, which looks at the availability of data across the protected characteristics in the Equality Act (2010). The Centre is committed to developing and maintaining the audit as a resource, alongside exploring ways of providing an explorable tool to enable the information in the audit to be presented in a more user-friendly format. This audit is also the basis for a disability evidence inventory, which is part of a collaboration between the Centre and the Disability Unit of the Cabinet Office to support the National Strategy for Disabled People.

Further collaborative work from the Centre has resulted in Published research outputs of the feasibility study that links the All Education Dataset for England (AEDE) to the 2011 Census. This Proof of Concept (PoC) dataset brings together information relating to personal characteristics of children and their family members with their educational attainment; this enables insights to better understand the effect of factors such as personal and familial characteristics and geography on educational outcomes. These data were produced in partnership with Admin Data Research UK (ADR UK) and the office of the Children's Commissioner for England (CCO) as part of the Data for Children Partnership. These research outputs are not official statistics, however future iterations of these data currently under development have the potential to give us far better insight into some of the factors affecting educational attainment.

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An important initiative of the Centre is to identify and share best practice methods in equalities data collection and analysis. As part of this, we are working closely with the Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation Team to consider how more consistent methods of measurement can be developed, applied and disseminated. An example of this is the July 2020 Gender identity harmonised principle for data collection.

We are also considering how best to include those who may be under-represented in our statistics, such as those not living in private households. We have been working with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to investigate existing and alternative ways in which "non-household" populations can be counted in measures of living standards, including poverty and destitution, and personal well-being. This is to complement existing statistics, which rely overwhelmingly on household surveys. We have published a summary of the findings from initial scoping work, carried out by Heriot-Watt University in association with Kantar Public. The full report is available on the Heriot-Watt University website.

The Centre chairs the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) taskforce on measuring social exclusion, representing the UK on the statistics for children, adolescents and youth.

The Centre was also a member of the Subgroup on Equality Data Collection associated with the European Union (EU) High Level Group on Non-discrimination. The Centre, whilst a member of this group, contributed to the development of new EU Guidelines on improving the collection and use of equality data, published in March 2019. The group also co-produced a Compendium of Practices on Equality Data which included several projects from the UK.

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Gender pay gap in the UK, 2020 Bulletin | Released 3 November 2020 Differences in pay between women and men by age, region, full-time and part-time, and occupation.

Ethnicity pay gaps, 2019 Article | Released 12 October 2020 Earnings and employment statistics for different ethnic groups, using regression analysis to provide more insight into factors that affect pay.

Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in England: 2018 Bulletin | Released 10 July 2020 Avoidable mortality in England, using measures of multiple deprivation to measure socioeconomic inequalities.

Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in Wales: 2018

Avoidable mortality in Wales, using measures of multiple deprivation to measure socioeconomic inequalities.

Research report on population estimates by ethnic group and religion Article | Released 4 December 2019 This research report presents a method for producing population estimates by ethnic group and by religion, using Annual Population Survey (APS) and census data. It is the first time that illustrative estimates of the population by religion have been produced in this way. New illustrative population estimates by ethnic group are also included, which are based on a three-year Annual Population Survey (APS) pooled dataset, in contrast to the single year of data used in the original research outputs.

Disability pay gaps in the UK: 2018 Article | Released 2 December 2019 This report presents analysis on the disability pay gap for the first time, using a new earnings weight on the Annual Population Survey (APS). This allows for more detailed analysis of disability and pay than was previously possible.

Improving disability data in the UK: 2019 Article | Released 2 December 2019 The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has explored outcomes for disabled people across a number of areas of life, through a series of bulletins. This work aims to present comparable information that uses the Government Statistical Services' (GSS) harmonised definition of disability, and as far as possible presents UK analysis alongside intersections with other protected characteristics.

Back to table of contents

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