Benefit recipients during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, England: November 2019 to March 2021

Age-standardised percentages of people who received a social security benefit by health conditions and sociodemographic characteristics, using linked 2011 Census, primary care and benefits data. Experimental Statistics.

Hwn yw'r datganiad diweddaraf. Gweld datganiadau blaenorol

Cyswllt:
Email Daniel Ayoubkhani and Ted Dolby

Dyddiad y datganiad:
6 December 2023

Cyhoeddiad nesaf:
To be announced

1. Main points

  • There was an increase in the age-standardised percentage of working-age people who received a social security benefit across most groups in England from March 2020, following the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic; this largely persisted for most groups during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic to March 2021.

  • Trends in benefit recipients during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic for people with specific long-term health conditions were broadly similar to trends for people without these conditions, with the percentage who received a benefit increasing at the onset of the pandemic before levelling off.

  • Among people with autism or a learning disability, the percentage of people who received a benefit was largely unchanged following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, whereas the percentage increased markedly for people without these conditions.

  • While the age-standardised percentage of people who received a benefit increased among all age groups at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, this increase was notably larger for younger age groups, particularly those aged 16 to 24 years or aged 25 to 34 years.

  • The age-standardised percentage of people who received a benefit increased more, in absolute terms, during the coronavirus pandemic for ethnic groups that had higher percentages of benefit recipients before the start of the pandemic, namely those in the Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and Pakistani groups; therefore, the ethnic differences in benefit recipients that existed before the start of the coronavirus pandemic became wider during the pandemic.

  • The age-standardised percentage of people who received a benefit before the start of the coronavirus pandemic was higher among those living in more deprived areas than less deprived areas, and the percentage also increased by a greater amount, in absolute terms, during the pandemic for people living in more deprived areas; therefore, the deprivation differences in benefit recipients that existed before the start of the pandemic became wider during the pandemic.

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These are Experimental Statistics produced from a proof-of-concept analysis using new data linkages that are continuing to be developed. The coverage of these statistics is incomplete with regard to the population, time period and benefit types included, and may therefore have limited use for decision-making. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) produces National and Official benefits statistics.

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4. Benefit recipients during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic data

Benefit recipients during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, England
Dataset | Released 6 December 2023
Age-standardised percentages of people who received a social security benefit by health conditions and sociodemographic characteristics, using linked 2011 Census, primary care and benefits data. Experimental Statistics.

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5. Glossary

Age-standardised percentage

Age standardisation enables comparisons to be made between groups that contain different proportions of people of different ages (for example, on average, people with health conditions tend to be older than those without health conditions). Age-standardised percentages were calculated as the weighted sum of age-specific percentages in five-year age bands, with age-specific weights representing the overall age distribution in the observed study population at the start of the study period.

Benefit recipient

People who have received a benefit are those who have made a benefit claim, have been deemed eligible for the benefit and received the benefit payment. In any given month, this includes people who were already receiving a benefit at the start of the month in addition to those who had been newly awarded a benefit during the month. Individual benefits included in this analysis are listed in Section 6: Measuring the data.

Coronavirus and COVID-19

Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that cause disease in people and animals. They can cause the common cold or more severe diseases, such as COVID-19. COVID-19 is the name used to refer to the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is a type of coronavirus. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) takes COVID-19 to mean the presence of SARS-CoV-2 with or without symptoms.

For this analysis, we used March 2020 as the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic because this is when social restrictions were first implemented in the UK, and therefore when we might expect to see an effect on employment and benefit recipients. This differs to some previous ONS analyses that used January 2020 as the start of the coronavirus pandemic; this is when the first known COVID-19 cases arrived in the UK, and is therefore a more appropriate start date for analyses of health rather than labour market outcomes.

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6. Measuring the data

Data sources

The data sources used in this analysis were:

  • 2011 Census, to define the study population and retrieve sociodemographic characteristics

  • death registrations, to remove from the study population people who died after completing 2011 Census, before the start of the study period (explained below) and before each month of the study period

  • the NHS General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) Data for Pandemic Planning and Research (GDPPR) dataset, to restrict the study population to people who were active NHS patients at the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and were therefore unlikely to have emigrated since 2011 Census, and to derive pre-existing health conditions at the start of the study period

  • the Benefits and Income Datasets (BIDs) from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), to identify people who received social security benefits, and the start and end dates of their receipts, during the study period

BIDs contain information on the following benefit types:

  • Universal Credit

  • Personal Independence Payment

  • Housing Benefit

  • Carer’s Allowance

  • Disability Living Allowance

  • Employment Support Allowance

  • Incapacity Benefit

  • Income Support

  • Jobseeker’s Allowance

  • Severe Disablement Allowance

BIDs also include information on Attendance Allowance, Pension Credit and Retirement (State) Pension. However, these benefits were excluded from the analysis because they relate to people aged 65 years and over, while our study population of interest comprised people aged 16 to 64 years. Bereavement Benefit and Widow’s Benefit were also excluded from the analysis because these benefits are not related to health or employment. For further information, see GOV.UK’s Benefits web page.

All data sources were de-identified prior to analysis, as outlined in our Using the power of linked data to understand factors preventing people from working blog.

Study population

The study population comprised approximately 28 million people who:

  • responded to 2011 Census

  • could be linked to an NHS Number via the 2011 to 2013 Patient Registers

  • could be linked to GDPPR via the 2019 NHS Personal Demographics Service (PDS)

  • could be linked to the DWP Customer Information System (CIS)

  • were resident in England (using place of residence from GDPPR if available, otherwise from 2011 Census)

  • were alive and of working age (aged 16 to 64 years) in each month of the study period

Of 2011 Census respondents who were resident in England and of working age at the start of the study period, 86.6% could be linked to GDPPR and the CIS.

Study period

The study period covered 1 November 2019 to 31 March 2021. We could not start the analysis before November 2019 because GDPPR only contains information on people who were alive and registered with the NHS from this point onwards, and we linked to this dataset using the 2019 PDS.

Therefore, anyone who died before November 2019 would not be included in our study population; starting the study period earlier than this could have introduced bias into the analysis.

For this analysis, data on Universal Credit and Housing Benefit were available until the end of March 2021, which therefore defined the end of the study period.

Statistical methods

We calculated the number of people who had received a benefit in each month of the study period as the number of people who had an open award for at least one of the listed social security benefits at the midpoint of the month. Universal Credit and Housing Benefit are awarded to entire households. We therefore classified individuals within households who received these benefits as themselves being in receipt of the benefit if they were referenced on the award.

The age-standardised percentage (see Section 5: Glossary) of people who received a benefit was estimated for people with and without the following long-term health conditions:

  • musculoskeletal conditions (rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis and fragility fractures)

  • cardiovascular conditions (coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure, myocardial infarction, atrial fibrillation, peripheral arterial disease and transient ischaemic attack)

  • respiratory conditions (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma)

  • autism

  • learning disability

People were identified as having these conditions based on the presence of a relevant SNOMED CT code in their primary care records from 1 January 2011 to 31 October 2019 (the day before the start of the study period).

We also calculated age-standardised percentages by the following sociodemographic characteristics:

  • age group (not age-standardised within groups)

  • sex

  • ethnic group

  • region

  • English indices of deprivation 2019 quintile group

  • disability status

  • general health status

For age-standardised percentages, 95% confidence intervals were constructed using the normal approximation.

Collaboration

This analysis was produced in collaboration with the Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Work and Pensions Joint Work and Health Directorate, particularly Nisha Patel, Miriam Wlasny, Hayley Moore Purvis and Frederick Wheeler. The analysis was funded by HM Treasury’s Shared Outcomes Fund, which was established in 2019 to incentivise government departments to work collaboratively across challenging policy areas to strengthen joint working, improve outcomes and deliver better value for citizens.

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7. Strengths and limitations

The main strength of this analysis is the large sample size, with the study population covering the majority of working-age people in England who were enumerated at 2011 Census. This enabled us to produce estimates for granular groups with high levels of statistical precision.

The main limitation of this analysis is its descriptive nature, meaning that cause-and-effect relationships cannot be inferred. Specifically, we cannot say whether trends in benefit recipients were caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic or if they would have been observed anyway.

Not everyone in the working-age population of England who received a social security benefit during the study period will be included in the study population (for example, because some people either could not be being linked to 2011 Census even though they responded to it, did not complete 2011 Census even though they were resident in the country in March 2011, or have migrated into the country since March 2011). If these benefit recipients who were excluded from the study population are systematically different to those who were included in terms of their health status and sociodemographic characteristics, this may have distorted our findings to some extent.

Trends in benefit recipients over the study period may have been lowered for people with health conditions, relative to those without. This is because disability status and general health status were self-reported at 2011 Census, and long-term health conditions were identified from health records up to November 2019. Therefore, if someone first developed a health condition or disability during the coronavirus pandemic, they would not be classified as such in our analysis. Furthermore, people with health conditions were more likely to die during the study period than those without, and individuals who had died were not included in our calculations following their death.

Sociodemographic characteristics were derived from 2011 Census data. The characteristics of anyone whose circumstances changed between March 2011 and November 2019 (for example, moving from an area of high to low deprivation, or changing occupation or socioeconomic classification) would not be up to date in this analysis.

While many working-age people who are economically inactive because of long-term sickness report having depression, bad nerves or anxiety, we did not have robust data on mental health conditions for this analysis. For further information, see our Rising ill-health and economic inactivity because of long-term sickness, UK: 2019 to 2023 article.

For this analysis, we used a binary measure indicating whether a person received at least one benefit type at least once, or did not receive any benefits, in each month. Therefore, the trends presented do not necessarily represent any changes in the number of benefit types or the total monetary amount a person received in each month.

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9. Cite this statistical bulletin

Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 6 December 2023, ONS website, statistical bulletin, Benefit recipients during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, England: November 2019 to March 2021

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Manylion cyswllt ar gyfer y Bwletin ystadegol

Daniel Ayoubkhani and Ted Dolby
Health.Data@ons.gov.uk
Ffôn: +44 1633 455825