2001 Census: Economic Activity
These tables give information about whether a person was working or seeking work during the week before the 2001 Census.
Percentage of the population that were economically active during the week before the 2001 Census. This table includes all people aged 16-74 years
|All people Aged 16-74||Economically Active: Full Time Employees||Economically Active: Part Time Employees||Economically Active: Self Employed||Economically Active: Unemployed||Economically Active: Full Time Student|
|Basingstoke & Deane||111,843||50.98||12.12||8.52||1.97||2.41|
|Hampshire (Including Portsmouth and Southampton)||1,192,452||44.18||12.63||8.39||2.18||3.12|
Percentage of the population that were economically inactive during the week before the 2001 Census. This table includes all people aged 16-74 years
|All people Aged 16-74||Economically Inactive: Retired||Economically Inactive: Student||Economically Inactive: Looking after the Family/Home||Economically Inactive: Permanently Sick/Disabled||Economically Inactive: Other|
|Basingstoke & Deane||111,843||11.13||2.2||6||2.75||1.92|
|Hampshire (Including Portsmouth and Southampton)||1,192,452||13.23||4.37||6.15||3.5||2.24|
The key points for economic activity highlighted in the 2001 Census were:
rising economic activity rates driven by increasing female participation in the work force,
a decline in male full time employment,
rising part time employment
an increase in the proportion of retired people.
In Hampshire, the overall economic activity rate increased by 2.7 per cent to 72 per cent in 2001. In England & Wales, economic activity rates declined by 0.5 per cent between 1991 and 2001, resulting in a figure of 66.5 per cent. For females, the increase in the economic activity rate was almost 10 per cent, standing at 64 per cent of the female population. The male economic activity rate declined by 2 per cent to 80 per cent of the male population.
Nationally, full time employment fell by 2 per cent while part time employment increased by 33 per cent. In Hampshire, full time employment remained static while part time employment increased by around 30 per cent. Full time employment for males in Hampshire declined by 2 per cent between 1991 and 2001 while male part-time employment doubled.
Economic activity rates increased in all districts in Hampshire between 1991 and 2001. This increase was entirely due to increasing female participation in the labour market, as male activity rates fell during the period in every area. The largest increases in overall economic activity rates were in Eastleigh (3.9 per cent), New Forest (3.8 per cent), Test Valley (3.3 per cent) and Fareham (3.2 per cent). The smallest increase was in Havant (0.3 per cent).
Districts in the north of the county had the highest economic activity rates in 2001 – Rushmoor (77.2 per cent), Basingstoke and Deane (76 per cent) and Hart (75.5 per cent). The lowest rates were in Havant (66.4 per cent) and New Forest (66.8 per cent). Havant’s rate was fractionally below the average for England and Wales of 66.5 per cent.
58 per cent of people in Hampshire were employees in 2001 and around three quarters of these worked full time. The situation was very different for males and females. There were ten times as many men working full time as part time, while there were only around 20 per cent more women working full time than part time. The biggest differences in the proportion of people working full time and part time were in the north of the county (Rushmoor, Basingstoke and Deane and Hart), with the least difference in New Forest, Havant and Winchester.
The percentage of people that were self employed increased by 8 per cent between the two censuses. The fastest percentage increase was seen in Gosport (14.5 per cent), however, this area still had the smallest proportion of self-employed people in Hampshire at 6 per cent (compared to 9 per cent for Hampshire as a whole). Generally, the rural areas of Hampshire had the largest proportion of self-employed people– East Hampshire, New Forest and Winchester all had more than 10 per cent in self-employment, while Gosport, Fareham, Havant, and Rushmoor all had less than 8 per cent. Men were more than twice as likely to be self-employed than women.
Unemployment in Hampshire fell by 49 per cent, compared to a 52 per cent decline nationally. The Hampshire average was 1.9 per cent of the population unemployed compared to a national rate of 3.4 per cent. The largest proportions of unemployed people in Hampshire were in Havant and Gosport (both 2.7 per cent). The lowest were in Test Valley (1.54 per cent) and Hart (1.56 per cent).
In 1991, the largest economically inactive category was ‘Other’ which included people looking after their family/home. By 2001, the largest inactive category was retired (14 per cent). The ‘Other’ category was split to show people looking after their family/home separately from others, but when these two were combined, they had fallen from 14 per cent in 1991 to 8 per cent in 2001. The proportion of people looking after family/home plus ‘others’ was fairly consistent across Hampshire, at around 7-9 per cent. The highest proportion was found in Havant (9.2 per cent) and the lowest in Fareham (7.5 per cent).
The district with the largest proportion of retired people was New Forest (19 per cent) followed by Havant (17 per cent) and Fareham (16 per cent). The lowest proportions were in Rushmoor (9 per cent), Basingstoke and Deane (11 per cent) and Hart (12 per cent).
Another inactive category that increased between 1991 and 2001 was permanently sick or disabled. These people made up a relatively small proportion of the population in both census years - 2 per cent in 1991 and 3 per cent in 2001 in Hampshire.
Portsmouth and Southampton
While Portsmouth experienced a rise in its economic activity rate between 1991 and 2001, Southampton’s rate declined, and in 2001 was relatively low at 64.4 per cent. Portsmouth’s figure was not quite this low but still below many of Hampshire’s districts at 67.8 per cent. This fall may have been due to the change in the way the student population was recorded.
Both Portsmouth (3.1 per cent) and Southampton (2.9 per cent) had unemployment rates above the Hampshire average (1.9 per cent) but below the national average (3.4 per cent).
The proportion of economically inactive students in Portsmouth almost doubled between 1991 and 2001 to 7 per cent of the population and in Southampton, the percentage more than doubled to 11 per cent. This rise was largely due to the change in population definition, whereby students in 2001 were counted at their term time address rather than their parents’ address.