Disability (5 categories)

Description: People who assessed their day-to-day activities as limited by long-term physical or mental health conditions or illnesses are considered disabled. This definition of a disabled person meets the harmonised standard for measuring disability and is in line with the Equality Act (2010).

Comparability with 2011: Broadly comparable. The question related to this variable was split into two parts for Census 2021. In Census 2021 we asked people completing the questionnaire if they have any physical or mental health conditions or illnesses. In the 2011 Census, people were asked if they have a health problem or disability. We also removed the option to include information about problems related to old age.

Provision of unpaid care (5 categories)

Description: An unpaid carer may look after, give help or support to anyone who has long-term physical or mental ill-health conditions, illness or problems related to old age.
This does not include any activities as part of paid employment. This help can be within or outside of the carer's household.

Comparability with 2011: Broadly comparable. If you use this variable to compare with the same one used in the 2011 Census, you can combine the categories "less than 9 hours" with "10 to 19 hours" and "20 to 34 hours" with "35 to 49 hours".

The combination of the categories "less than 9 hours" and "10 to 19 hours" means that this does not exactly match the Census 2011 variable which had a "1 to 19 hours" category. It can still be used when comparing with data from the 2011 Census although there is a difference of one hour of care.

Sex (3 categories)

Description: This is the sex recorded by the person completing the census. The options were "Female" and "Male".

Comparability with 2011: Highly comparable