Introduction

The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) is an annual survey of the general population in Scotland, carried out since 1999. It aims to collect reliable and up-to-date information on a range of topics, through a random sample of people in private residences. It is a voluntary and interviewer-led survey, usually carried out face-to-face in people’s homes. The 2024 methodology and fieldwork outcomes report provides details of the methods used.

This publication contains the 2024 Scottish Household Survey results relating to childcare. Results for other topics are available on the Scottish Household Survey results webpage.

The 2024 results are published as official statistics (see below) in line with 2022 and 2023. This is in contrast to 2020 and 2021 results, which were published as experimental statistics. This was due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in the 2020 and 2021 survey years having a different methodology, lower response rates and a change in the profile of respondents compared to typical survey years. Data relating to 2020 and 2021 can be found in their respective key findings reports and supplementary documents.

Throughout this report, tables are referenced. These are published in Excel format as supporting documents to the report, and include specific results for groups in the population (e.g. urban and rural areas). Some of the differences between groups may be due to random sampling variation i.e. chance. Similarly, some apparent differences between 2023 and 2024 results may occur by chance. We use standard statistical tests of significance to determine the likelihood of differences being due to chance. When this report refers to differences between groups or years, these differences are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level unless explicitly stated otherwise. Some differences between groups in the Excel tables that appear large may not be mentioned in this report, because they are not statistically significant.

An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

More information about Scottish Government statistics is available on the Scottish Government website.

Childcare

The main section of this report focuses on questions asked of households with a child aged two to five years old and not yet at school, considering only that one child. However, the results on household childcare costs and affordability include responses from all families with at least one child aged up between 0 and 11 years old.