Population and Society

Our Population and Society domain covers statistics on the size and geographic spread of the population, on the factors driving population change (including births, deaths and migration), and on people’s lifestyles and culture, including sport, language, and identity.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted how important it is to understand how we are living and engaging in UK society. We want to uphold public confidence in the data and statistics that we cover, particularly at this time.

We are monitoring statistics relating to COVID-19, working with producers to ensure the statistics meet the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics, and responding to users queries and concerns on statistical matters. For more information on OSR’s work during the period of the pandemic, visit our dedicated COVID-19 page.

Our priorities for 2020/21 are to work to make sure that data and statistics are of sufficient quality and value to reliably support public debate and key decision making by a wide range of individuals, organisations, governments departments, and other stakeholder groups.

We will aim to do this through looking at how statistics and data serve as evidence for understanding key life events and personal wellbeing, including issues of loneliness and social isolation. We will continue our assessment of the 2021 Census and our ongoing engagement with producers on developments to migration statistics.

Contact our regulators for this domain Marie McGhee, Effie Roberts and Sarah Kilday for more information.

Planned Work

Published Correspondence – Population and society domain

Published Publications – Population and society domain