Scottish Household Survey 2024 findings: neighbourhoods and communities report

Summary of main points

This report draws on key data from the Scottish Household Survey (SHS, 2024) to explore key findings on neighbourhoods, communities, social isolation and loneliness, and neighbourhood safety at a national level in Scotland. It also gives additional detail across various protected characteristics, and for people living in different places, such as urban and rural settings.

Neighbourhoods

• The latest data (2024) from SHS shows that across Scotland, the majority (94%) rate their neighbourhood as a good place to live, a slight fall from 95% in 2023. Fifty-four percent of adults rate their neighbourhood as a ‘very good’ place to live, stable from 2023.
• There are differences in neighbourhood ratings between Local Authorities, urban and rural settings and by levels of deprivation in an area. There are also differences for key subgroups of the population.

Communities

• People are positive about the people based features of their communities, such as neighbourhood trust and giving and receiving help from neighbours. However, there have been small declines since 2023. Eighty-three percent agree they live in neighbourhoods where people are kind to each other, a slight fall from 85% in 2023. Seventy-five percent agree they could turn to someone in the neighbourhood for advice or support (down from 80% in 2023).
• There has been no change in agreement that there are places to meet and socialise in neighbourhoods (60% in 2024, stable from 61% in 2023), and that there are welcoming places and opportunities to meet new people (56% in 2024, stable from 2023).
• There remain ongoing differences based on where people live, including between people living in urban and rural settings, and more or less deprived areas. There are also inequalities for different subgroups of the population, such as for disabled people, by ethnicity, age and sex.

Social isolation and loneliness

• In 2024, 68% of adults in Scotland ‘met socially with friends, relatives, neighbours or work colleagues’ at least once a week. This is stable from 2022.
• Levels of loneliness have improved. In 2024, 20% of people report experiencing loneliness at least some of the time, this is a fall from 23% in 2022.
• Some groups are more likely to experience loneliness. This includes the oldest and youngest age groups, those living in the most deprived areas, disabled people, and people living in single adult households (single adults, single parents and single pensioners).

Neighbourhood safety

• In 2024, the majority of people (78%) said they felt ‘very’ or ‘fairly safe’ walking alone in their neighbourhood after dark, this is a fall from 81% in 2023.
• There is a clear association between how adults rated their neighbourhood and how safe they felt in their communities. Eighty percent of adults who rated their neighbourhood as ‘very’ or ‘fairly good', said they felt safe walking alone at night, compared with just 27% of adults who rated their neighbourhood as ‘very poor’.
• Women, older people, and disabled people feel less safe in their neighbourhoods.

Changes over the longer term – COVID-19

• Many of the national level improvements in neighbourhood connections that were seen in 2022 have not maintained, with neighbourhood trust, kindness and sense of belonging now stable with pre-pandemic levels.
• Loneliness increased in 2022 but has fallen in 2024, and is now stable with its 2018 level.
• People continue to meet socially less frequently than they did in 2018.
• Perceptions of neighbourhood safety have worsened since 2019.