Press Release: Scots report increased financial pressure impacting their work and home life

48% of people living in Scotland believe their financial situation is worse than a year ago, our independent quarterly tracker has revealed.   

Since August 2024, there has been a six percentage point rise in people feeling that their own finances have worsened in the last year – with 3 in 10 people (29%) admitting they have lost sleep over money.

While 63% believe that the general economic conditions are worse, up nine percentage points, 65% of people said they believe that the general economic conditions will continue to decline, up 13 points on the last quarter.  

The latest results for the Understanding Scotland Economy Tracker, from the David Hume Institute and polling experts Diffley Partnership, suggest a growing lack of optimism over the last three months and pose big questions for Shona Robison ahead of the Scottish Budget.

The latest edition of the survey from November 2024 shows that:

• More than 1 in 6 people (17%) report strained relationships at home because of money

• 1 in 6 Scots (16%) report an impact on their physical health due to worries about money

• 1 in 3 people (32%) report an impact on their mental health due to worries about money

• Only 15%  say that concerns about money matters have not affected them

• 3 out of 4 people (75%) believe the economy works primarily in the interests of wealthy people

This shift towards a less positive outlook suggests that political messaging from Prime Minister Keir Starmer that “things will get worse before they get better” ahead of Labour’s first budget in October has been heard loud and clear by Scots.

However, there is not a complete lack of optimism with younger Scots more likely to believe that their financial fortunes will turn. Those aged between 16 and 34 appear more optimistic with 25% saying they believe their own economic situation will get better. This compares to just 6% of 45 to 54 year-olds, 8% aged 55 to 64, and 5% of over 65s.

When looking at the policy priorities for Scots, healthcare and the NHS remains the top priority of Scots with nearly half (47%) citing this as one of the top three issues facing Scotland.  A third (34%) cite cost of living and inflation, this has declined eight percentage points from November 2023. One in five (19%) put poverty/inequality among the top three issues facing Scotland.

Scott Edgar, Senior Research Manager, at the Diffley Partnership said:

“The latest findings from the Understanding Scotland Economy Tracker show that public confidence in the economy has taken a massive hit over the last three months.

People are reporting that concerns over money matters are impacting their work, home life, and health.

With two-thirds of Scots expecting the economy to worsen over the next twelve months, many will be looking to next week’s Scottish Budget as a chance to offer a signal of confidence in the nation’s economic future.”

Susan Murray from the David Hume Institute said

“With the Scottish Government’s budget just over a week away, there is an opportunity for Finance Secretary Shona Robison take on board the large number of people struggling financially.

“However, as the weather turns colder, it feels like there is a long hard winter ahead for many. I hope all political parties take on board the large number of people feeling so stretched as the political horse-trading starts to get the Scottish budget passed. 

“The economy will not turn a corner and productivity will not increase until more people are sleeping easily at night and not lying awake worrying about money.”

  Notes to editors: 

• Designed by the Diffley Partnership and the David Hume Institute, the survey received 2,233 responses from a representative sample of the adult population, aged 16+, across Scotland. Invitations were issued online using the ScotPulse panel, and fieldwork was conducted between the 1st-5th November. Results are weighted to the Scottish population (2021 estimates) by age and gender.  

Blog: Stressed out - the cost of shifting risk from institutions to individuals

by Shelagh Young, DHI Engagement Lead

Do you do a good day’s work after a poor night’s sleep? Do financial worries stop you focusing on the other things that matter in life - on family and friends, on your health or your job? 

Stress and anxiety have been the leading causes of lost working days in the UK for some time. But, despite increased productivity being seen as an essential component of economic growth, the impacts of stress and anxiety on the productivity of people who feel well enough to still go to work is comparatively less well measured or understood. 

Last month we reported that more than one in four Scots are losing sleep over their finances. In July the ONS reported the weakest annual growth since the first quarter of 2013 (excluding the Covid-19 pandemic period) and the weakest productivity output of worker per worker since 2009.

Are these two dismal facts related?

We think so. The research charity Centre for Mental Health calculates that mental health related  presenteeism, defined as being present at work but not fully functioning, costs the UK economy at least £21.2 billion a year in lost productivity. 

In the light of this it is obvious that government needs to lead on reducing stress and anxiety in order to boost wellbeing and therefore productivity. It cannot offload all of this responsibility onto employers, especially as not everyone is employed. Employers can rightly be held to account for reducing work-related stress and anxiety but the wider causes are not theirs alone to solve.

One of these sources of stress is the impact of what the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) calls The Great Risk Transfer. This is best described as a shifting of the burden of risk, such as ensuring our workplace pensions yield sufficient returns to keep us out of poverty in retirement,  from institutions to individuals. The IFoA argued that significant changes relating to pensions, work, health and insurance are placing more of the burden of risk on individuals with potentially socially and economically undesirable outcomes. 

We will be exploring our  research on this topic in a forthcoming lecture at the University of Edinburgh Business School. This work, which was supported by the IFoA,  found that the changes the IFoA identified were often poorly understood by the people most affected and not always their top priorities. For example, while the IFoA included precarity at work in its exploration of risk transfers, our research revealed greater front of mind concerns about precarity in housing.

We found that most people had a very partial understanding of the financial risks they were facing but that did not mean they were unaffected by financial risk-related stress. We heard a lot about the stress of coping with financial responsibilities and that was before the cost of living rose so dramatically. This matters because stress is not just a problem of presenteeism or individual unhappiness. Chronic stress causes long-term and profound health problems including weight gain, heart disease and strokes. All of these are a major concerns when it comes to costs to the public purse. 

We will be following up on our work around risk soon to find out more about what could be done to enable people to cope better. But the one thing we know already is that, while actuaries are professionally trained in risk-management, most of the rest of us are not. We need people to stay healthy enough to be at work but we also want their minds on their jobs for the sake of productivity. It is simply not good enough to design and implement policies that overload people with ever greater and more complex responsibilities which mean, as the FT described it earlier this year, we all need to be actuaries now.

ENDS

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