To understand the extent to which our survey sample is likely to be representative of the wider population in England, we looked at the most recent mid-year population estimates published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). As of June 2020, there were an estimated 45.7 million individuals aged 16 or over in England, of which approximately 23.3 million were female (Table 2). Our sample of respondents therefore represents around 0.2% of the total population and 0.4% of the female population in England. Table 2. Estimated number of individuals and females aged 16 or over in England, compared with number responding to our survey
PopulationNumber of survey respondents
ONS mid-year estimates (June 2020)Estimated % of population represented in survey Individuals aged 16 or over in England97,30745,697,8980.2% Females aged 16 or over in England95,05123,280,7330.4% Nearly all respondents (99%) said they, or the woman they had in mind, are cisgender – meaning that their gender identity matches their sex registered at birth. In comparison, 1% said they identify with a gender different to their sex at birth (for example, they were registered female at birth, but identify as a man). The ONS mid-year estimates do not capture this level of information, so a comparison is not possible. By region, 21% of survey respondents said they live in south-east England, 18% in London, and 13% in south-west England (Table 3). This means that respondents from all other regions in England were slightly underrepresented in our sample. Table 3. Location in England
ResponseNumber of respondentsPercentage of respondentsPercentage of population with characteristic (ONS mid-year estimates, 2020) South-east England20,15221%16% London17,54218%16% South-west England12,78013%10% North-west England10,72011%13% Yorkshire and the Humber8,1298%10% West Midlands8,0238%10% East Midlands7,4888%11% East of England7,4728%9% North-east England3,6894%5% South4990.5%N/A North3180.3%N/A Midlands2370.2%N/A Note: ‘London’ includes respondents who completed the easy read version of the survey. The options south, north and Midlands were only seen by easy read survey respondents, and could not be incorporated into the standard survey results. By age, 80% of respondents were 25 to 59 years old (Table 4). Those falling outside of this age bracket were underrepresented in our sample, relative to the wider. This was particularly true for individuals aged 60 and above, who represent approximately 30% of the population in England, but just 9.2% of respondents to our survey. Table 4. Age band
ResponseNumber of respondentsPercentage of respondentsPercentage of population with characteristic (ONS mid-year estimates, 2020) 16 to 17 years old6551%3% 18 to 19 years old1,3641%3% 20 to 24 years old7,9618%8% 25 to 29 years old13,19514%8% 30 to 39 years old25,95127%17% 40 to 49 years old21,38422%16% 50 to 59 years old17,49818%17% 60 to 69 years old7,2807%13% 70 to 79 years old1,7462%11% Above 80 years old1670.2%6% By ethnicity, 91% identified as white, while the remaining 9% identified with a black, Asian, mixed or minority ethnic group (Table 5). The Asian ethnic group (2%) was the only group to be underrepresented relative to the estimated population overall (7%). Table 5. Ethnic group
ResponseNumber of respondentsPercentage of respondentsPercentage of population with characteristic (ONS mid-year estimates, 2020) White87,32891%87% Asian2,3342%7% Black3,2553%3% Mixed2,7203%2% Other (includes Gypsy, Roma, Traveller)7851%1% We then looked at NHS England’s GP Patient Survey 2021 to estimate how representative our sample was of people who live with a health condition or disability, and found that we had a higher proportion of respondents with an existing health condition or disability (67%) than we would expect to see in the population at large (52.5%, Table 6). This was not entirely unexpected given that our call for evidence emphasised the need to hear from women with a broader range of health conditions including, for example, endometriosis and the menopause. Table 6. Health status
ResponsePercentage of respondentsPercentage of population with characteristic (GP Patient Survey, 2021) Has an existing or long-term health condition or disability67%52.5% Does not have an existing or long-term health condition or disability30%44.5% Prefer not to say2%3% Due to a constraint on the number of questions we could include in our survey, we did not collect data on other protected and personal characteristics such as sexual orientation, religion or belief, and socioeconomic background. We therefore do not know how representative the findings in this report are for women with these characteristics. The population comparisons in this section can be found in a supplementary spreadsheet published as Annex B. A full breakdown of all demographic results from the survey can be found in the survey data tables spreadsheet, Tables 1_1 to 1_9b, in Annex A.