Demographic information for women in the UK

Release date:
14 March 2018

You asked

I am trying to find out the demographic details of women aged between 45-55 in the UK.

Specifically I would like to know how this group breaks down by:

  • Region
  • Socio-economic status
  • Working status

We said

You made a freedom of information request to obtain information on the demographic details of women aged between 45-55 in the UK (specifically by region; socio economic grade; and working status).

Our main source for working status information is the Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is the largest household survey in the United Kingdom. The information you require can be obtained from the LFS datasets. Special extracts and tabulations of data are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to the customer services team of ONS Social Surveys Division (socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk).

As this information is already available to you via this route, we consider that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. S.21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.

We do publish several breakdowns of working status by age and gender, however most of the tables we publish from the LFS on a monthly/quarterly basis are for all employees in the 16-64 or 16+ age groups.

If these are still of interest to you then the following published tables most closely match your requirements:

If you are able to run your own analysis, another route would be to access the anonymised LFS datasets at the UK Data Service. Details of how to access the data can be found here: http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access.aspx. Data can be downloaded free of charge for non-commercial purposes but if charges are applicable, you will be notified during the ordering process. Further details are available at the following links:

We can also provide you with information on the demographic details of women aged between 45-55 in the UK from the 2011 Census. Please note however that we are only responsible for census statistics in England and Wales.

For details on the position of Scotland and Northern Ireland, please contact:

National Records of Scotland (http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/contact-us)

Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (https://www.nisra.gov.uk/contact)

If data from the 2011 Census are of interest to you, the following tables are available from the NOMIS website. For each table, please use the "Query data" option to refine your search and to select your required variables (geography (all regions), age (45-55), sex (F), approximated social grade, economic activity).

We also publish mid-year population estimates for the UK at local authority level, by single year of age of which may also be of interest to you; Mid 2016 population estimates (See MYE2-F for Females by single year of age and sex for local authorities in the UK, mid-2016)

If you have any similar questions relating to the 2011 Census in the future, rather than using the Freedom of Information route, you can contact Census Customer Services directly;

Web: https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/censuscustomerservices

Email: census.customerservices@ons.gov.uk

Tel: +44 (0)1329 444972

Census Customer Services, ONS, Titchfield, Fareham, Hants, PO15 5RR

Making an FOI request

Everything you need to know about Freedom of Information and how to go about making a request.