Life in the UK Focus on Area Deprivation

Carnegie UK publishes an annual wellbeing index called Life in the UK. ​

This measures social, economic, environmental and democratic wellbeing across the UK, giving governments insight to understand whether we are collectively living better or worse. The 2023 Life in the UK Index, conducted in partnership with Ipsos, was based on a survey of more than 6,900 people.

This 2023 insights paper presents further detail on the inequalities we identified in collective, social, economic, environmental and democratic wellbeing by index of multiple deprivation in the UK. It reveals that those in the most deprived areas are doing less well across all areas compared to those in the least deprived areas.

For example, in comparison to people living in the least deprived areas, people living in the most deprived areas are:

• Three times more likely to disagree that they can meet an unexpected but necessary expense of £850 and to report dissatisfaction with the public, green or open space in their local area.
• Around twice as likely to report that they have very bad or bad health and mental health, that they feel unsafe walking alone in the local neighbourhood after dark, that they do not have someone in the neighbourhood to rely on.
• More likely report having experienced discrimination, to have low levels of trust in local councils and to report that they cannot influence decisions affecting their local area, and to have low levels of trust in the police and the legal system and courts.