Equality data for social housing tenants: 2004 to 2010

Main points

• There are a greater proportion of young people living in social housing than in Wales’ population overall. In 2010, around 41% of social housing tenants were aged under 25 (which also includes children) compared to 31% in Wales’ general population.
• As with the general population the gender split for social housing tenants varies depending on age with considerable increases in the proportion of women compared to men in the 70 and over age group, presumably as women generally live longer than men.
• In 2009, 4.1% of all social housing tenants were from black or minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds, which was the same as the proportion within the overall population. The proportion of social housing tenants from BME backgrounds increased each year from 2004 to 2008 reaching a peak of 4.6%, but it has since been decreasing and in 2010 was 3.9%.
• In 2010, Christianity remained the most common religion among social housing tenants, with around 57% of tenants in this group. However, this proportion has declined considerably since 2004 when almost 70% of all social housing tenants classified themselves as Christian.
• In 2010, a higher proportion of social housing tenants were disabled (39%) than seen in the Welsh population as a whole where 24% were disabled.