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Exploratory unemployment graphics
Dan Olner
11/03/2022
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These plots are just for thinking, not for publishing.

Some pre-amble bullet points:

  • The data is percent unemployed in 1991 (tweaked) wards across 5 Censuses from 1971 to 2011. Percent unemployed is a subset of the count of economically active people.
  • So an issue we face here: there were many people pushed onto long-term disability benefits, especially in ex-mining communities, who I think will have been in the stats as 'economically inactive' (see e.g. this by a couple of UoS economists: New Evidence on Disability Benefit Claims in the UK: The Role of Health and Local Labour Market, Roberts & Taylor 2019.) Wonder if it's possible to get data on that? (They use BHS here.)

Starting with just looking at unemployment change within the Sheffield/Rotherham TTWA itself...

Sheffield in context: top ten TTWAs (by economically active population): change in unemployment over the 5 Censuses

Note Sheffield and London between 1981 and 1991: unemployment rising where most drop.

Sheffield and London were 2 of 50% of TTWAs that saw unemployment rise from 81-91. The pattern between Censuses is:

  • 71-81: every single TTWA saw unemployment rise
  • 81-91: 51% saw unemployment rise, the other half dropped (see maps below, there's a pattern that's relevant.)
  • 91-01: every single TTWA saw unemployment drop
  • 01-11: 77% saw unemployment rise.

Geography of unemployment change 1981-1991

So, unemployment rose everywhere from 71-81. For that 50% split from 81 to 91, there's a geography to it. No legend here, but gives the impression:

  • Redder = unemployment rising more
  • Bluer = unemployment dropping more

That cluster near Sheffield/Rotherham where unemployment went up:

Comparing change within each Census (animated GIF)

I wanted to see what Sheffield's unemployment looked like at each Census compared to the rest of Great Britain at the same time point (i.e. was it extreme / any outliers etc). To do this I've:

  • Used a Z-score of unemployment per ward for each Census (values of zero are the GB mean - standardised scores below zero are relatively lower unemployment, above zero are relatively higher unemployment, compared to the rest of GB at that Census)
  • Compared the top ten TTWAs again
  • Animated each Census on the same scale

Things to note:

  • Sheffield wards don't appear extreme generally... (compare to Liverpool and Glasgow, for example)
  • But note: Sheffield unemployment extends right through the first three Censuses, where many others see a reduction. This supports what the maps are showing - the Sheffield region seemed to have a longer-term unemployment impact (along with other clusters) compared to much of GB.
  • It's interesting how little the relative shape of unemployment changed across the decades for certain areas. Sheffield changed more than most.