Community Life Survey 2020/21 - Wellbeing and Loneliness
Analysis of questions from the Community Life Survey 2020/21 related to wellbeing and Loneliness
Applies to England
Documents
Details
Background
The Community Life Survey collects information about the wellbeing of adults (16+).
In October 2018, the Prime Minister launched the government’s first loneliness strategy for England. This statistical release presents the most recent headline findings on levels of loneliness, as well as support networks and social networks.
The Community Life Survey uses the Government Statistical Service (GSS) harmonised principle of loneliness and wellbeing. The estimates presented here are therefore comparable with other surveys that use this principle. However we advise taking caution when comparing measures from different surveys because differences in the methodology (e.g. mode/sampling approach) will all affect estimates. Other statistical data sets that use this definition, and therefore have comparative data, are available from the GSS guidance page. In Annex C there are details of further surveys that have adopted the Government Statistical Service harmonised principles of loneliness and Wellbeing.
Headline Measures – 2020/21
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Average scores for life satisfaction, the extent to how worthwhile the respondent felt things in their life were and happiness have decreased since 2019/20.
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Life satisfaction score was 6.9 (out of 10) in 2020/21, a decrease from 7.0 in 2019/20.
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How happy people felt yesterday decreased from 7.0 (out of 10) in 2019/20 to 6.8 in 2020/21. This has trended downwards from 7.2 in 2015/16.
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Whether people felt the things they did were worthwhile decreased to 7.1 (out of 10) in 2020/21 from 7.3 in 2020/21.
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How anxious people felt yesterday at the time of survey completion averaged at 3.8 (out of 10), which was in line with the figure in 2019/20. This figure has trended upwards from 2015/16 where it was 3.3.
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6% of respondents (approximately 3 million people in England) said they felt lonely often/always. This is in line with reported loneliness from 2019/20.
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Loneliness was higher for 16-24 year olds, the most deprived and those with a long term limiting illness or disability.
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An indirect loneliness composite score was produced which found significantly higher loneliness scores for those with a long term limiting illness or disability compared to those without.
Further Data
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Measures of National Wellbeing Dashboard, which monitors and reports on multiple wellbeing measures.
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Chapter 1 of the Community Life Survey provides estimates on support networks and methods of communicating with friends and family.
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In December 2020, DCMS published the second ’Community Life Survey: Focus on Loneliness’. This used data from the 2019/20 survey, giving more detailed breakdowns by demographics and looking at the link between loneliness and other measures from the survey, such as volunteering and community engagement.
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In June 2020, the Office for National Statistics released a paper titled “Coronavirus and Loneliness, Great Britain”, which gives an overview of how different groups of people experienced loneliness during the COVID-19 Pandemic. A number of other studies of the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic on loneliness have been published. These include the COVID Social Study (conducted by University College London), and the ONS publication Mapping Loneliness during the coronavirus pandemic.