Income and employment: working-age and in-work poverty

Working-age poverty

Before housing costs, 620,000 working age adults in Scotland were living in relative poverty in 2020-23; after housing costs, this increases to 720,000.   The proportion of working-age adults living in relative poverty in Scotland has fluctuated without clear change in direction since 1994-97.  Child poverty (which declined between the late 1990s and mid-2000s, and again in the aftermath of the 2008-09 recession) increased from 2011-13 until 2015-17 but has stopped rising in the most recent time period. Pensioner poverty, which declined until 2008-11 and was broadly stable until 2013-15, also appears to have stopped rising in recent years (see Chart 1).

In-work poverty

In 2020-23, 70% of children and 60% of adults in poverty in Scotland lived in households with at least one adult in work. 

The proportion of people in poverty in Scotland living in working households has increased over time.   In 1999-02, fewer than half of children and adults in relative poverty lived in working households (see Chart 2).

The Scottish Government have published a range of resources on working poverty, including on mothers returning to work and what we know about in-work poverty (2019).

Please note: If you require the most up-to-date data available, please check the data sources directly as new data may have been published since these data pages were last updated. Although we endeavour to ensure that the data pages are kept up-to-date, there may be a time lag between new data being published and the relevant ScotPHO web pages being updated.