Income spent on rent for new lettings of social housing

Published

Last updated 31 July 2020 - see all updates

This page has been archived.
It has been replaced by Social housing lettings.

1. Main facts and figures

  • in 2017/18, there were 297,565 new social housing lettings where the ethnicity of the main tenant was known
  • the percentage of income (including benefits) spent on rent for new social housing lettings is similar across all ethnic groups, ranging from 33% to 40% – by comparison, the percentages in 2016/17 ranged from 34% to 41%
  • Black Caribbean households spent the largest percentage of their income on rent compared to all other ethnic groups, while Pakistani and Other White households spent the lowest percentage – this was also the case in 2015/16 and 2016/17

2. Things you need to know

What the data measures

This data measures the amount of rent paid for social housing lettings as a percentage of total household income.

The information relates to households of either one person or a group of people sharing cooking facilities and a living room or dining area. It must be their main or only home.

Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.

Not included in the data

The data does not include:

  • lettings where a tenant started a new tenancy agreement but stayed in the same property
  • lettings where the ethnicity of the main tenant was not known (5% of households)
  • households who did not give details of their income (43% of households )

Data has been suppressed (not shown) if there are only 1 or 2 people in a particular ethnic group. This is to protect people’s confidentiality.

The ethnic groups used in the data

This data uses the 18 standardised ethnic groups from the 2011 Census.

Each household’s ethnic group is the ethnicity of the main tenant. For a joint tenancy, the main tenant is the person who is either employed, or unemployed and looking for work. If both tenants have the same employment status, the main tenant is the oldest person.

The ethnicity of the main tenant was not known for 5% of all new social housing lettings.

Methodology

Read the detailed methodology document for the data used on this page.

This data has not been adjusted to take into account the number of people living in a household, or their employment status. For example, a household of 4 people could be made up of 2 working adults and 2 dependent children, or it could include 4 working adults.

You can see data about families and households by ethnicity.

The data has been weighted so it is representative of the population of England. Read more about how weighting is used to make survey data more representative of the whole group being studied.

In the data file

See Download the data for data for the years ending March 2016 and March 2017.

3. By ethnicity

Location:
England
Time period:
2017/18
Source:
Social housing lettings in England: April 2017 to March 2018
Percentage of income spent on rent for new social lettings by ethnicity
Ethnicity 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18
% % %
All N/A* 36 35
Asian
Bangladeshi 38 36 35
Chinese 38 40 36
Indian 38 38 37
Pakistani 34 34 33
Asian other 39 38 37
Black
Black African 38 38 37
Black Caribbean 43 41 40
Black other 40 37 38
Mixed
Mixed White/Asian 40 39 37
Mixed White/Black African 39 38 37
Mixed White/Black Caribbean 40 39 39
Mixed other 38 38 37
White
White British 37 36 35
White Irish 40 40 39
White Gypsy/Traveller 39 37 36
White other 34 34 33
Other
Arab 38 38 36
Any other 38 37 38

* Not applicable

Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)

Summary of Income spent on rent for new lettings of social housing By ethnicity Summary

This data shows that:

  • in 2017/18, the percentage of income spent on rent for new social housing lettings was similar across all ethnic groups, with a national average of 35%
  • Black Caribbean households spent 40% of their income on rent for new social housing lettings, the highest of all ethnic groups – Black Caribbean households also spent the highest percentage of their income on rent in 2015/16 and 2016/17
  • households from the Pakistani and Other White ethnic groups spent the lowest percentage of their income on rent for new social housing lettings in 2017/18, at 33% each – households from these ethnic groups also spent the lowest percentage of their income on rent in 2015/16 and 2016/17

4. By ethnicity and area

Location:
England
Time period:
2017/18
Source:
Social housing lettings in England: April 2017 to March 2018
Percentage of income spent on rent for new social lettings by ethnicity and area
Ethnicity East Midlands East of England London North East North West South East South West West Midlands Yorkshire & Humber
% % % % % % % % %
Asian
Bangladeshi 29 34 40 24 27 34 29 31 30
Chinese 28 33 46 26 33 30 40 31 34
Indian 33 37 47 26 35 39 31 36 37
Pakistani 31 33 42 31 32 35 36 32 32
Asian other 33 34 43 34 35 37 35 39 35
Black
Black African 33 37 42 31 33 38 33 35 33
Black Caribbean 35 42 45 35 36 42 36 37 35
Black other 35 38 46 33 36 37 37 36 33
Mixed
Mixed White/Asian 36 38 49 39 35 38 32 37 35
Mixed White/Black African 35 38 45 36 35 38 35 34 33
Mixed White/Black Caribbean 36 38 47 29 36 39 39 38 34
Mixed other 34 36 44 32 35 38 34 37 33
White
White British 34 37 46 33 34 38 34 35 34
White Irish 35 38 49 40 36 40 38 37 35
White Gypsy/Traveller 31 41 45 29 32 40 34 31 27
White other 28 34 43 29 29 36 28 31 27
Other
Arab 31 36 42 31 35 37 35 37 33
Any other 35 35 43 41 35 35 34 39 34

Download table data for ‘By ethnicity and area’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity and area’ (CSV)

Summary of Income spent on rent for new lettings of social housing By ethnicity and area Summary

This data shows that:

  • in 2017/18, the percentage of income spent on rent for new social housing lettings was highest in London for all ethnic groups, ranging from 40% for Bangladeshi households to 49% for both White Irish, and Mixed White and Asian households
  • the percentage was lowest in the North East, ranging from 24% for Bangladeshi households to 41% for households from the Other ethnic group

5. Data sources

Source

Type of data

Administrative data

Type of statistic

National Statistics

Publisher

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Publication frequency

Yearly

Purpose of data source

The aim of Continuous Recording of Lettings and Sales in Social Housing in England (CORE) is to provide information about new social housing lettings, sales, tenants and buyers across England.

This information is used by government bodies and organisations to inform social housing funding, regulatory and housing policy decisions.

6. Download the data

Percentage of income spent on rent for new social lettings - Spreadsheet (csv) 27 KB

This files contains the following: Measure, Ethnicity, Ethnicity_type, Time, Time_type, Geography_code, Geography_name. Geography_type, Value

Publication release date: 18 March 2019

Updated: 31 July 2020

full page history
  1. Moved all contextual information to ‘Things you need to know’ and its new subsections. Increased visibility by adding it to the table of contents. Removed any duplication and added links to content about understanding our data. Charts, tables and the data file have not been updated.
  2. Some headings have been changed. No data or commentary has been updated.
  3. Updated with the latest available data (for 2017/18).

From: Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Previous editions:
  1. Edition published on 5 October 2018
  2. Edition published on 2 March 2018
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