Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of migraine on levels of employment, absenteeism and economic inactivity in sufferers.

No assessment has been made of the potential impact of migraine on employment and economic inactivity. This information isn’t available as the Labour Force Survey (LFS), the primary source for data on labour market participation and economic inactivity, only reports figures by long‑term health condition and does not include a category for migraines.

However, LFS data shows that working-age people with a long-term health condition are less likely to be in employment than those without a long-term health condition, at 64.1% compared with 81.6%, and are around twice as likely to be economically inactive, at 31.5% compared with 14.6%. The data is available at the following link:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/labourmarketstatusofdisabledpeoplea08