Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the ONS release Rising ill-health and economic inactivity because of long-term sickness, UK: 2019 to 2023, dated 26 July 2023, what the prevalence of (a) depression, (b) bad nerves and (c) anxiety is for each age cohort of (i) men and (ii) and for people (A) in work and (B) who are long term sick.

“Depression, bad nerves or anxiety” is a pre-specified single category in the Labour Force Survey questionnaire. We are therefore unable to separate out depression, bad nerves and anxiety from each other.

As such, we have provided a breakdown of working-age people (16-64) self-reporting depression, bad nerves or anxiety as a main or secondary health condition by age and sex for those (A) in work and (B) economically inactive due to long-term sickness, for the most recent quarter of data available. Note this is unpublished data.

Prevalence of depression, bad nerves or anxiety by age and sex, for those in work and those who are economically inactive due to long-term sickness, April-June 2023 (unpublished)

Source: Labour Force Survey (LFS) quarterly person data

Note this is unpublished data from our own analysis of ONS Labour Force Survey data and that the ONS release compared Jan-Mar 2019 to Jan-Mar 2023 data.