Health and welfare

The 2001 census reveals the following facts about the health situation in the United Kingdom:

Just over two thirds of the population said their general health was good, with just over one in five revealing their health was "fairly good" and almost one in 10 describing their health as "not good".

Nearly one in five people in the UK has a long-term illness, health problem or disability which limits their daily activities or the work they can do. Of the four coun­tries in the UK, Wales has the highest proportion of people who reported their health was "not good" — 12.4 per cent — and all local authorities in Wales have above aver­age rates for this category. Wales also has the largest number of people with limiting long-term illnesses — 23.3 per cent — and the highest proportion of unpaid carers — 11.7 per cent. England is the healthiest, with only 9 per cent of people describing their health as "not good", and 17.9 per cent reporting a limiting long-term illness. Life expectancy in the UK is still very high with 84 years for women and 78 years for men.

Employment

Four in 10 people aged between 16 and 74 in the UK are in full time employ­ment. Just over another one in 10 work part-time, while 8 per cent are self-employed.

The total number of unemployed people at the time of the 2001 census was 3.43 per cent, while 2.6 per cent were full-time students, and 13.6 per cent were retired. These figures vary from year to year depending on the state of the economy. Of those who do work, the largest proportion are managers and senior officials — almost 15 per cent.

Just over 13 per cent of workers are in administrative and secretarial occupa­tions, while a similar number fall into the "associate professional and technical" cat­egory, which includes jobs such as engineering technicians, nurses and artists. Skilled tradesmen and women account for almost 12 per cent of workers, while just over 11 per cent described themselves as professionals. People with "elementary occupa­tions", for example mail sorters, hotel porters and traffic wardens, make up almost 12 per cent of the workforce.

Summing up the involvement of the active population of the country, one should note that the service sector is in the lead followed by manufacturing (20.3 per cent), whereas less than 2 per cent is involved in agriculture.

Transport and Transportation

Without any doubt, British people love their cars. Despite years of rising con­troversy over traffic jams and concern for the environment, they overwhelmingly use their cars to get to and from work. Some 30 per cent of families in the UK own 2 cars.

In England, almost half of homes own one car. A quarter own two vehicles. Approximately 1 per cent of homes own four or more cars. According to the latest census, there are 23,936,250 cars in active use in England and Wales. The patterns are almost identical in Wales and Northern Ireland, including the number of house­holds which don't use a car — just over a quarter. In Scotland, there is a higher pro­portion of households without cars (34 per cent) but almost exactly the same num­ber of households with one car (43 per cent). Fewer homes own two cars (18 per cent). Scotland's 2.1 million families own 2,044,018 cars.

The exception to all of this is London. A majority of London homes do not own a car. This by no means suggests it is because they are poorer. London has dramati­cally higher levels of use of public transport as more people choose to avoid driving in the capital's near-constant traffic jams and where access to the centre is strictly limited and parking is almost impossible!