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This section outlines the socio-economic variables used in this research, their attributes and justification for each of the selected variables. These socio-economic variables were adopted

80 for the Phase 2 study. These variables were selected from the UK 2011 National Census Data. Decisions on which appropriate socio-economic variables to use for measuring area socio-economic deprivation were solely driven by the review of the literature. Evidence from the literature review indicates that area SECs such as education, age, ethnic minority group, family composition and employment, among others, are key determinants of the demand and supply of retail outlets, including the specific AASRs focused on in this research (Burkey and Simkins, 2004; Collard and Hayes, 2010; Wardle et al., 2010; Bower et al., 2014; Prager et al., 2014).Thus socio-economic variables relating to these characteristics were the ones collected from the National Census.

UK Census data for 2011 is available from InFuse³ and Nomis⁴. The InFuse portal provides data from the 2001 and 2011 censuses. Nomis, on the other hand provides data on the UK labour market dynamics and is a part of the ONS data. Nomis provides data at different spatial scales including output areas, super output areas (lower and mid layer), postal areas and health geographies. For this research, the data was obtained through Nomis because of the relative ease in navigating the website. In addition, Nomis not only provides the raw estimates for all census data, but it also provides these estimates in percentages. Therefore, percentage estimates were collected at LSOA geography.

3.5.5.1 Minority ethnic variable

Data relating to ethnic characteristics was obtained from key statistics table KS201EW⁵. According to Nomis, this table classifies the local resident populations based on their perceived cultural backgrounds and ethnic groups (Nomis, nd). The ethnic groupings comprise five major groups which are further divided into specific subgroups. The broad ethnic groups are ‘White’, ‘Mixed/multiple ethnic groups’, ‘Asian/Asian British’,

‘Black/African/Caribbean/Black British’ and ‘Other Ethnic Groups’. From these broad groups, just 2 were selected ‘Asian/Asian British’ and ‘Black/African/Caribbean/Black British’. ‘Asian/Asian British’ consists of ‘Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi’ and ‘Chinese’.

‘Indian’, ‘Pakistani’ and ‘Bangladeshi’ were grouped together as a variable while ‘British Chinese’ was taken as a single variable. ‘Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi’ represents South East Asian while the second represents Chinese/British Chinese descent. The

3 http://infuse.ukdataservice.ac.uk/

4 https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011

5 The key statistics (KS) tables are found on the Nomis website https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011 for each variable.

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‘Black/African/Caribbean/Black British’ renamed as one-group. The final ethnic minority variables are therefore:

• Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi (IPB)

• Black/African/Caribbean/Black British (Black)

• British Chinese/Chinese

Justification for non-selection of the ‘White’ Ethnic group is that they are not classified as a minority ethnic group in England. Also, for the ‘mixed/multiple’ ethnic groups their inclusion would likely create an anomaly as one of its sub-groups is classified as ‘White and Asian’ and it categorises all ‘Asian’ together. Hence, it fails to indicate which Asians sub-group (either South East or Chinese/Other Asian). Therefore, it was concluded that this broad group be excluded from the analysis.

3.5.5.2 Family composition

Data relating to housing characteristics was obtained from key statistics table KS105EW. This data classifies all households in the UK based on family composition. The categories include ‘one-person household’, ‘one family household’ and ‘other household types’. The ‘one family households’ is further categorised into different sub-groups. Only one family household group was considered here because this research is only interested in couple and lone parent households. Therefore, the variables of interest are:

• Married or same sex civil partnership – Couple Households

• Lone Parents Households 3.5.5.3 Age Structure

Data on area age composition was obtained from key statistics table KS102EW which classifies the usual resident population into different age structures consisting of ‘age 0 to 4’, ‘age 5 to 7’, ‘age 8 to 9’, ‘age 10 to 14’, ‘age 15’, ‘age 16 to 17’, ‘age 18 to 19’, ‘age 20 to 24’, ‘age 25 to 29’, ‘age 30 to 44’, ‘age 45 to 59’, ‘age 60 to 64’, ‘age 65 to 74’, ‘age 75 to 84’, ‘age 85 to 89’ and ‘age 90 and over’. Considering that the legal age for patronage of AASR services is age 18 and over, age categories lower than 18 were excluded. The remaining age categories were further merged into four categories, as described below:

• 18 – 24 - obtained from the merging of age categories 18 – 19 and 20 – 24

• 25 – 44 - obtained from the merging of age categories 25 – 29 and 30 – 44

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• 45 – 64 - obtained from the merging of age categories 45 – 49 and 60 – 64

• 65 and above - obtained from merging the remaining 65 – 74, 75 – 84, 85 -89 and 90 and over.

3.5.5.4 Educational qualifications

For educational qualifications, the UK Census asked question about residents’ highest level of education. This information is represented in key statistics table KS501EW and captures the qualification of the usual resident population age 16 and over. The various categories of educational qualification are persons with ‘no qualification’, ‘level 1 qualifications’, ‘level 2 qualifications’, ‘apprenticeship’, ‘level 3 qualifications’, ‘level 4 qualifications and above’, other qualifications, fulltime students age 16 – 17 and age 18 - 74. For this study, the student group in this category was not included here but was included as a standalone variable (see below).

3.5.5.5 Fulltime students

This variable is represented in table KS501EW. To select the student variable, careful consideration was given to the various categories reported in the National Census. The categories include ‘school children and fulltime students: age 16 to 17’, ‘school children and fulltime students: age 18 and over’, ‘fulltime students: age 18 to 74: economically active: in employment’, fulltime students: age 18 to 74: economically active: unemployed’, ‘fulltime students: age 18 to 74: economically inactive’. For this selection, as the legal age for patronage of AASR services is age 18+, only age 18 years and above categories were considered. In addition, as this study is interested in all fulltime students 18 and above irrespective of their employment status, the fulltime students age 18 and over was selected, irrespective of whether economically active or inactive.

3.5.5.6 Car ownership

Car ownership levels were obtained from table KS404EW on the Nomis Portal which estimates cars or vans per household. The inclusion of this variable is because the UK Census has no income variables. Therefore, previous research on deprivation driven by the national census data has used car ownership as a proxy for income/affluence (Galobardes et al., 2006).

More importantly, previous research shows that car ownership is a good measure of socio-economic deprivation, especially in urban areas (Christie and Fone, 2003). The categories included in table KS404EW include ‘no car’, ‘one car’, ‘two cars’, ‘three cars’ and ‘four or more cars’ per household.

83 3.5.5.7 National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-Sec Occupation)

This variable classifies individuals based on their occupation. There are three variables depicting occupation in the national Census: ‘industry by sex’, ‘occupation by sex’ and ‘NS-Sec by sex’. The NS-‘NS-Sec (KS611EW – KS613EW) is derived from occupation and gender based on the Office for National Statistics classification and is a widely acceptable variable in socio-economic research, which is why this variable was selected. This classification has eight main categories and subcategories. They are ‘higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations’ which has two sub categories (‘large employers and higher managerial and administrative occupations’ and ‘higher professional occupations’), ‘lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations’, ‘intermediate occupations’, ‘small employers and own account workers’, ‘lower supervisory and technical occupations’, ‘semi-routine occupations’, ‘‘semi-routine occupations’ and ‘never worked long-term unemployed’ and not classified. The classifications were consolidated into four groups, excluding the not classified which was dropped:

• Managers and professionals - made up of higher and lower managerial, administrative and professional occupations

• Intermediate occupations – made up of intermediate and small employers and own account workers

• Routine and lower occupations – made up of lower supervisory, technical, semi-routine and routine occupations.

• Never worked and long term unemployed – made up of persons who have never worked and long-term unemployed persons.