Key findings

• • Ethnic group is not a fixed characteristic during a person's life.

• • Four per cent of all people chose a different ethnic group in 2011 than in 2001. This is twice the level of instability found for the decade 1991 to 2001.

• • Among the main ethnic group categories, 1 per cent of White British in 2001 changed their ethnic group when asked again in 2011. Four per cent of Bangladeshi and 26 per cent of White Irish groups changed their ethnic group.

• • A larger proportion of those in Mixed and ‘Other’ ethnic groups changed their recorded category (for example, 43 per cent of ‘Mixed White & Black African’ in 2001 identified with another census category a decade later).

• • This should concern official statistical agencies responsible for setting ethnic group response categories in censuses and surveys, because ‘Mixed’ and ‘Other’ categories are the fastest growing groups as a result of natural change and international migration.

• • A change of ethnic group category in the census is often due to a person's background fitting more than one category; it need not involve a conscious change of ethnic identity.

• • The main categories of ethnic group can be compared from one census to another, but the residual ‘Other’ categories cannot. A recommended comparison of most stable groups identifies seven groups for comparison from 1991 to 2011, and 12 groups for comparison from 2001 to 2011.

• • When a category names a region or a country, someone born there is more likely than others to stay with that category.

Introduction

Statistics of ethnicity are often treated rather like birthplace, sex or date of birth, as if there is little doubt about either the categories that have been used or their acceptance by respondents to the question. But while the measurement of ethnicity has become a norm in Britain and many other countries, the categories used are not at all fixed. And its reliability is limited: four in every 100 people asked their ethnic group in 2001 changed their answer when asked again in 2011. This chapter explores that reliability, asking why recorded ethnicity may change over time, and who is most likely to change their ethnic group.

Those who collect and review statistics of ethnicity are in no doubt about their fallibility.

Introduction

The chapters of this book have highlighted the ethnic dimension of Britain's diverse population. When averaged across an ethnic group, the characteristics of individuals have striking differences compared to other groups’ education, health, housing, employment and location within Britain. The analysts who have presented and interpreted these chapters have explained many of these differences by referring to the historical development of Britain's ethnic diversity, through immigration, adjustment, integration and contribution to the life of this country.

In this chapter we discuss the implications of these findings for three main policy areas that have motivated the government to measure ethnicity. The first is the set of policies that address inequality brought about by discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnic or national background that has been illegal since the first Race Relations Act of 1965. The second area of policy addresses the diversity of preferences and needs that are associated with ethnicity, and the respect for these differences that goes hand-in-hand with equal access to services. The third area is concerned with community relations in a diverse society, which more recently has been associated with community cohesion and national security issues.

The last but no less substantial part of this chapter attempts to clarify some of the concepts and measurements that such policies require of social statistics, and asks how far we can rely on ethnic group differences to direct public policy.

Discrimination

Despite improvements in the health, employment, education, housing and neighbourhood deprivation of minority ethnic groups over the last 20 years, clear disadvantage persists in comparisons with the average experience of the White British group. The Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups continue to have poorer health and higher unemployment than the White British majority. Household overcrowding disproportionately affects people in the Bangladeshi and Black African groups. Black African men and women continue to face disadvantage in the labour market with lower levels of labour market participation and, along with Black Caribbean men and women, higher rates of unemployment if they are available for work. In 2011, Black Caribbean and Black African men's unemployment among 25- to 49-year-olds was 1 in 6, 10 percentage points higher than the 6 per cent of White British men of the same age.

Ethnicity is at the centre of major political debates in Britain. From diverse perspectives, politicians and campaigners have highlighted differences between ethnic groups in where they live, the skills and education they are provided with, the jobs they have and the healthcare they receive. The measurement of these ethnic group differences has become increasingly complex as identities evolve, and more people mix within families, neighbourhoods and workplaces. Comparisons made 50 years ago between immigrants from the British New Commonwealth as a whole and the average experience of UK residents are now made between family origins of many more world regions, between immigrants and their children and grandchildren born and educated in the UK. The context of social policies has moved from race relations to also encompass the management of immigration and the integration of immigrants, religious discrimination and the relationships between ethnic and religious claims and state services, as well as the state's response to terrorist threats.

In this book we show what the largest government statistical enquiry has to say about the dynamics of ethnic identity and inequality in contemporary Britain. The chapters draw on data from the decennial censuses of population in England, Wales and Scotland, which have asked a question on ethnic group since 1991. The first section shows how ethnic groups have grown, the places they are most diverse, how they perceive their national identity, and how ethnic identity changes over time. The second section looks at whether minority ethnic groups are residentially segregated and continue to face disadvantages in health, housing, employment, education and neighbourhoods.

This chapter introduces the concept of ethnicity, its measurement in the UK context, and the identities and inequalities that these data and other collected statistics have been able to identify. The chapter ends with a short description of the book and a section of reference material that is used throughout the book.

What is ethnicity?

Measuring ethnicity is fraught with difficulty because researchers try to reduce a subjective and dynamic concept to a categorisation that is meaningful to individuals and, at the same time, manageable in data analysis. Bulmer (2010) suggests an ethnic group is a collectivity within a large population with shared identity defined by kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality or physical appearance. The importance of these dimensions in what shapes ethnic identity will vary from person to person.

Key findings

• • All minority ethnic groups living in England are more likely to live in a deprived neighbourhood than the White British group.

• • More than 30 per cent of Bangladeshi and Pakistani people live in deprived neighbourhoods – three times the England average.

• • The proportion living in deprived neighbourhoods fell for most ethnic groups between 2001 and 2011 as a result of each group growing faster outside deprived neighbourhoods.

• • Minority ethnic groups are most concentrated in neighbourhoods that are deprived because of low income, barriers to housing, crime or poor living environment, and less concentrated in neighbourhoods that are deprived because of low employment, poor health or poor educational results.

• • The inequality between ethnic groups in the proportion living in deprived neighbourhoods is greatest in the northern regions of England.

• • Inequalities between the White British group and minority ethnic groups in unemployment and labour market participation are not greater in deprived neighbourhoods than in other neighbourhoods, suggesting that minority groups are disadvantaged wherever they live.

Introduction

The 2011 Census tells us that unemployment among minority ethnic groups is almost twice that of the White British population in England and Wales (see Chapter Eleven). This disadvantage can only be partially accounted for by the individual characteristics of minority ethnic groups which mean they are more likely to be unemployed, including being younger, having fewer educational qualifications, being born abroad, and not speaking English well (Berthoud, 2000; Carmichael and Woods, 2000). The remainder not accounted for by these characteristics is often regarded as an ‘ethnic penalty’, which refers to unmeasured effects including direct and indirect discrimination by employers (Heath and Cheung, 2006; Simpson et al, 2009). Although discriminatory practices are difficult to measure, there is evidence to suggest that discrimination continues to impede the progress of certain minority ethnic groups in housing markets in 21st-century Britain (Lynn and Davey, 2013).

An additional explanation for the presence of ethnic penalties is that minorities are unevenly distributed in poor parts of urban areas in Britain where unemployment and competition for jobs are high (Fieldhouse, 1999; Clark and Drinkwater, 2009). Their concentration in these neighbourhoods is a legacy of the availability of employment and housing opportunities when most immigrant groups settled in the country. The speed at which minority ethnic groups have dispersed to surrounding areas varies and is often tied to socioeconomic differences (Catney and Simpson, 2010).

Key findings

• • In 2011, one in five people in England and Wales (20 per cent) described their ethnic group as other than White British compared with 13 per cent in 2001.

• • The population other than White British, White Irish and Other White has doubled in size since 1991, from 3 to 7 million, while remaining a small minority of the total population in 2011 (14 per cent).

• • The Black African ethnic group has grown faster than any other minority group in the last two decades, doubling in 1991-2001 and 2001-11 to reach 990,000 in 2011.

• • Ethnic diversity is increasing in all parts of England and Wales, and at a faster rate in those places where minority ethnic groups were fewest in 2001.

• • Minority ethnic groups remained clustered in certain diverse urban areas, most notably London.

• • There has been continued ethnic group mixing within families. The number of people identifying with a ‘Mixed’ ethnic category increased by 82 per cent between 2001 and 2011 to more than a million.

• • The proportion of mixed households has grown in 346 out of 348 local authority districts in England and Wales. Excluding one-person households, one in eight households now have more than one ethnic group.

• • New measures in the census show that the majority of people from minority ethnic groups describe themselves as British, do not have a minority religion, and speak English as their main language.

Context

British society is becoming increasingly ethnically diverse. This is a pattern that has been documented throughout the post-war period and more widely since the inclusion of an ethnic group question in the 1991 Census (Rees and Butt, 2004). Prior to the 1950s, the minority ethnic population was small and largely confined to a small number of dockland areas (Peach, 1996). The post-war immigration to Britain was initially dominated by people arriving from the Caribbean who quickly became outnumbered by those from South Asia, whose immigration was tied to events in the New Commonwealth countries (Coleman and Salt, 1996). By 1991, a youthful age structure meant many groups were growing rapidly through an excess of births over deaths.

This chapter and the next describe the growth of ethnic diversity between 1991 and 2011 in England and Wales. This chapter shows how it is occurring in all parts of the country, and not just in those places where minority groups are most clustered.

Key findings

• • Half of the population born abroad and living in England and Wales arrived in the UK aged 15-29. This is an age when they are economically productive and are unlikely to require or be eligible for state benefits.

• • All ethnic groups in England and Wales have grown in size since 2001 through more births than deaths, apart from White British and White Irish groups. Most have also grown through net migration into England and Wales.

• • The excess of births over deaths is because minority ethnic groups have a young age structure, not because of high fertility.

• • The fertility of most groups has increased a little in the 2000s, but overall there is less difference in family size between ethnic groups than in past decades.

• • For most ethnic groups whose first major immigration to the UK was over a generation ago, growth through further immigration is not as much as their ‘natural’ growth within England and Wales through an excess of births over deaths.

  • – Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups have each grown by about 50 per cent during 2001-11, and mostly because more people have been born than have died.

  • – For the Black Caribbean group, whose main immigration to the UK was now 60 years ago, growth has been less than 5 per cent; it was almost entirely due to the excess of births over deaths rather than further immigration.

  • – The Indian group is an exception among established minority ethnic groups: it has grown through immigration during the period 2001-11 more than through an excess of births over deaths.

• • During the 2000s, the Other White (including most Eastern Europeans), Black African and Chinese ethnic groups added rapidly to their population from further immigration as well as from natural growth. Each grew between 70 and 100 per cent in total during the decade.

• • The ‘Mixed’ groups have a very young age structure. Their growth was mainly due to children born in the decade. A smaller but significant growth of about 25 per cent was through immigration.

• • The White Irish group in England and Wales reduced by 18 per cent over the decade, from an excess of deaths over births, from net emigration, and from a net movement out of the White Irish ethnic group largely to the White British group.

Key Findings

• • More than half of people in minority ethnic groups describe their national identity as British, English or a combination of the two.

• • Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian and Black Caribbean ethnic groups are the most likely to consider themselves as exclusively British.

• • An English-only national identity is favoured by more than seven tenths of the White British ethnic group.

• • Those in the White British ethnic group are less likely to describe themselves as English if they live in London rather than other parts of the country.

• • Immigrants from regions where there is a history of British colonialism are more likely to consider themselves as British than those born in other world regions.

• • Fewer than a quarter of Muslims do not identify with a British national identity.

• • Muslims living in communities where there is a greater cluster of other Muslims are more likely to describe themselves as British than Muslims living away from those clusters.

Introduction

This chapter presents national identity data from the 2011 Census. It starts with a brief review of the political context and theoretical debates in the field before describing how national identity varies by ethnic group, birthplace, religion and across local authority districts in England.

Policy context

In 2006 the Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, argued that “every child in our country, wherever they come from, must know and deeply understand what it means to be British” (British Political Speech, 2006). In this, he follows a long line of politicians (including John Major on the right and Gordon Brown on the left) who express concern about a perceived lack of affiliation to a notion of ‘Britishness’. However, politicians struggle to define what it means to be British. Cameron himself could only offer: “the components of our identity – our institutions, our language and our history”. Concerns about national identity have taken on particular force in the context of widespread critiques of state multiculturalism (Thomas, 2011). In part, these critiques are shaped by responses to civil disturbances in Oldham and Bradford in 2001 and in the declared War on Terror after the 9/11 bombings in New York and the 7/7 bombings in London. There have been debates as to how strong the multicultural policies are that have actually been introduced, particularly within the public sphere of law, government, employment, education and the market, as opposed to a rhetoric of multiculturalism (Grillo, 2007).