Financial Fairness Tracker: February 2023
Scotland February 2023
University of Bristol and abrdn Financial Fairness Trust
February 2023
One-in-five households (21%) in Scotland are currently living in serious financial difficulty – equivalent to more than half a million of the country’s 2.5 million households. The rising cost of living is having material impacts on the quality of life for many households in Scotland, such as finding it harder to keep their home warm and comfortable (reported by 53% of working-age households); eating lower quality food (46%); feeling less able to participate in either hobbies or pastimes (40%) or in social activities (38%). Nearly a quarter of Scottish households (24%) have at some point cut back on the number of meals they eat, while 14% had been less able to take part in some form of physical activity. These impacts are particularly worrying given that Scotland already has the lowest life expectancy at birth of all UK countries and the gap in life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas of Scotland has widened.
