By Nicola Shelton

When the 2021 census was first planned, we thought some of the biggest research questions to emerge from it would be around the effects of Brexit. But while those are still live, researchers and others will be watching with interest to see what this snapshot of Britain in 2021 will tell us about the effects of Covid-19.

It will be two years before new data begins to emerge from the March 2021 Census – and by then we hope the world will be quite a different place. But what will the ONS Longitudinal Study tell us about the pandemic, and about the changes it has wrought on all our lives?

One of the biggest questions will, sadly, be around mortality data. While the grim daily totals have told us about those who have died, and what their current or last occupation was when they died, the LS can link that mortality data with other information about the whole lives of those who have died. Because we have information going back to 1971, we can know where those people lived, what jobs they had done and what types of families and households they had lived in. It will give us a much richer picture of the complex reasons why some groups appeared to suffer more than others in the pandemic.

(more…)