2. Things you need to know about this release

This release examines how personal well-being ratings vary dependent on a person’s sexual identity. Sexual identity is one part of the umbrella concept of sexual orientation, a recognised protected characteristic under the Equality Act (2010). Sexual identity does not necessarily reflect sexual attraction or sexual behaviour – these are separate concepts, which we currently do not measure.

For information on the measurement of personal well-being and sexual identity please see the Quality and methodology section of this release.

The Equality Act (2010) lists the following as protected characteristics, and our accompanying dataset provides personal well-being statistics broken down by 7 of these:

age

disability

gender reassignment (data not available in this release)

marriage and civil partnership

pregnancy and maternity (data not available in this release)

race

religion or belief

sex

sexual orientation

Personal well-being statistics are designated as National Statistics, having been assessed against the Code of Practice for Official Statistics in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. However, sexual identity estimates have not been assessed in this way and should therefore be treated as Experimental Statistics. Whilst this publication has been badged as a National Statistic, you should apply caution in interpreting estimates of sexual identity in this release.

These are estimates from the Annual Population Survey (APS) 3-year dataset. This dataset allows for more granular analysis of personal well-being, however, currently it does not allow for over time comparisons. For more timely estimates and comparisons over time, please see the rolling annual estimates of personal well-being.

This is the first time that the 3-year dataset has been created on a calendar year basis (January to December). The previous two have been created on a financial year basis (April to March).

We welcome feedback on these changes. Please contact the Quality of Life team (QualityOfLife@ons.gov.uk) with any comments or suggestions, including your views on improvements we might make.