Life Opportunities Survey

Find out about the Life Opportunities Survey, a key piece of research from the Office for Disability Issues

What is the Life Opportunities Survey?
How the Life Opportunities Survey works
Life Opportunities Survey interim results

What is the Life Opportunities Survey?

The Life Opportunities Survey compares how disabled and non-disabled people participate in society in a number of areas.

These areas include:

work
education
social participation
transport
use of public services.

The Survey aims to identify the reasons why people do not take part in these areas as much as they would like to. It also explores topics such as living standards, housing, discrimination and crime.

The government will use this information to:

measure levels of participation across different areas of life
identify the barriers to participation in society
target policies and resources where they are most needed.

How the Life Opportunities Survey works

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) runs the survey throughout the year across Great Britain. It interviews a random sample of households, with sectors of society chosen to reflect the general population.

This is a longitudinal survey, which means it will return to interview the same people over the coming years. This will help government understand how people’s lives change and to monitor whether life opportunities are improving.

Life Opportunities Survey

The Survey must establish a baseline from which progress can be measured. Fieldwork for the full wave one of the survey was conducted between June 2009 and March 2011. The baseline (wave one) results are now available and update the interim findings that were published in December 2010.

Wave one results, 2009/11

These results were published on 8 December 2011, according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

Factsheets summarising the key findings are also available at the above link along with an easy read version of the executive summary.

Interim findings, 2009/10

The interim findings were published on 9 December 2010, according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority. They reflect the first year of interviews with respondents in Great Britain, gathered between March 2009 and June 2010.

Life Opportunities Survey interim results at the Office for National Statistics website

Qualitative research reports

The Office for Disability Issues (ODI) commissioned two qualitative research reports to complement the statistics provided by the Life Opportunities Survey. Qualitative research allows participants to explain the opportunities and barriers they experience in their own words.

The first report includes responses from people with learning disabilities or other impairments that would have meant the survey would not have been otherwise accessible.

The second report describes how disabled people exercise choice and control and their experiences of accessing goods and services.