Life in the UK Focus on Housing Tenure

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 homeowners are doing better than social housing and private tenants across all areas.

For example, in comparison to homeowners, social housing tenants are:

• Almost four times more likely to report poor health.
• Around three times more likely to report poor mental health, dissatisfaction with education and skills, inability to afford adequately warm homes, enough food for everyone in the household, an annual holiday and to socialise outside the house.
• Around twice as likely to report feeling unsafe walking alone at night, experience of a great deal or fair amount of discrimination and finding it difficult to access a grocery store/supermarket on foot.
• Significantly more likely to report low levels of trust in local councils, legal system and courts, and the police.