Protected Characteristics and Financial Wellbeing An overview from the Financial Wellbeing Survey 2021

As an arm’s length body providing public services, MaPS needs to respond to the Public Sector Equality Duty and take steps to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Act.
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

This report complements other previously published reports on mental health, gender and ethnicity.  

This report shows how financial wellbeing varies for the following protected characteristics:

• Age 
• Disability 
• Gender reassignment 
• Marriage and civil partnership
• Pregnancy and maternity 
• Race 
• Religion or belief (including lack of belief)
• Sex 
• Sexual orientation

This report is based on questions in MaPS’s Adult Financial Wellbeing Survey.

The Financial Wellbeing Survey is a nationally representative survey of 10,306 adults living in the UK. It consists of online and postal interviews during July to September 2021. The research was conducted for the Money & Pensions Service by Critical Research.

Data is weighted to be representative of the UK 18+ population by region/devolved nation, age, gender, indices of multiple deprivation, housing tenure, urbanity, ethnicity, working status and internet usage.

We examined the financial wellbeing of UK adults to see the extent to which it varies for people with different protected characteristics.

We did this by using a summary measure of based on nine key aspects of financial wellbeing.

For every protected characteristic, we found differences in financial wellbeing between the different categories within that characteristic.

From this, it is clear that lower financial wellbeing is more common among people with these characteristics:

• 18–44-year-olds
• Black or mixed ethnicity
• Female or non-binary
• Transgender
• Gay/lesbian or bisexual
• Disabled
• Separated or single
• On maternity (or partner on maternity)
• No religion

Our analysis for this report did not examine intersectionality, i.e. the extent to which the interaction of several of these characteristics could increase the likelihood of lower financial wellbeing. However, it is reasonable to hypothesise that this could be the case, and to identify this as a potential area for further exploration.

MaPS has published Equality Objectives, which apply to how we interact with our colleagues and how we work with our customers. At MaPS’ we value diversity and see it as key to achieving our mission.

This research is critical in helping us achieve our fourth objective, which is to; “design and deliver high quality services to our customers that take full account of their current and potential vulnerability and their protected characteristics”.

The findings of this report, adds to our understanding of how financial wellbeing varies between different characteristics, and will be used to inform future decision making.