Social connectedness

Information regarding social connectedness was obtained from men and women aged 18 years and over in the 2021-22 PSS.

In the context of the PSS, social connectedness is a measure of how people come together and interact with others.

The questions used in this topic seek to identify recent types of social interaction the respondent had with friends, and the ability of the respondent to ask people outside of their household for small favours or support in a time of crisis. ‘A time of crisis’ refers to difficult life events that are distressing for most people, for example:

• sudden sickness
• death of a partner/spouse
• loss of a job
• breakdown of marriage/relationship
• fire or flood.

The social connectedness topic comprised four questions.

The first asked about participation in three types of social activities in the three months prior to the interview.

The second asked about the respondent’s ability to ask for help in their day-to-day lives from other people who don’t live with them.

The third and fourth questions relate to the respondent’s ability to ask someone who does not live with them for support in a time of crisis, and the sources they could ask support from.

The data items and related output categories for this topic are contained within the SPS Level – Social connectedness tab in the data item list available under Downloads.

Data for this topic has been collected to examine the relationship between social connectedness and experiences of violence.

Data items from this topic should not be used on their own to produce population estimates of social connectedness.

Points to be considered when using and interpreting data for this topic include the following:

• Participation in face-to-face social activities only refers to social activities with friends. It does not include social activities with family members. It is designed to measure participation in face-to-face social activities with persons outside of the respondent’s family network. Social contact via the internet was not limited to specific relationship types, and therefore could include contact with family members.
• Sources of support for day-to-day activities or in a time of crisis refer to support from people who did not live with the respondent. Sources of support from within the household are excluded.

The social connectedness topic was first introduced in the 2012 PSS and is comparable across all subsequent PSS survey cycles.