Birthplace and Nationality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 April 2023
Summary
The Censuses provide a detailed snapshot of a rapidly changing picture. In June 2015 it was announced that the UK population had risen to 64,596,800 by mid-2014; 585,600 immigrants were estimated to have arrived in the previous 12 months, and 322,900 people were thought to have left the country. The figures had also been bolstered by 226,200 more births than deaths in those 12 months (from mid-2013 to mid-2014). This was a slowdown on the rise in births that had been recorded every year since the last Census had been taken in 2011. A quarter of these UK births were to mothers who had been born outside of the UK. As a result, 46% of the rise in population in the year to June 2014 was due to natural change (births and deaths), 53% to net migration, and 1% due to movements of members of the armed forces. Policy debate in the UK is often dominated by such figures, but they are rarely put in the very long-term context that a series of Censuses provide when it comes to understanding immigration.
The graph below was created by painstakingly collecting data from each British Census that asked about country of birth and amalgamating countries so that a consistent time series could be constructed. For 2011, where the Census data is insufficiently detailed, we have used estimates from the 2011 Annual Population Survey. The first Census to ask where people were born was held in 1841 and only differentiated between people born in Ireland (which was then part of the UK), the rest of the then British Empire, and the rest of the world. Back then just 2.9% of the population of the UK had been born outside of England, Wales and Scotland. However, for some this may have been a few too many: just as the first UK Census was taken in 1801 due partly to fears raised by Thomas Malthus over population growth due to fertility, so a question on birthplace of residents was added to the 1841 Census because of fears among those in power over who was entering the country and from where. At that time, the population of Britain was only 18.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- People and PlacesA 21st-Century Atlas of the UK, pp. 81 - 112Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2016