CASE-BROOKINGS CENSUS BRIEFS

No.2

Minority Ethnic Groups in Britain

Ruth Lupton and Anne PowerNovember 2004

INTRODUCTIONThis paper is the second in a series of Census Briefs produced by CASEand inspired by the work of the Brookings Institution in the United Stateswhose Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy has played a creative rolein informing and in part helping shape the recovery of US cities.The seriesaims to help advance the debate on the future of cities and towns in Britainby presenting evidence of key urban and neighbourhood trends during the1990s, using evidence from the 1991 and 2001 Censuses.The first paper inthe series covered population growth and decline in Britain's cities andregions. This one looks more closely at changes in the size and distributionof minority ethnic groups, nationally and within the major conurbationswhere they are concentrated.

London School of EconomicsHoughton Street

London WC2A 2AETel: 020 7955 6679

CENTRE FOR ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL EXCLUSIONAn ESRC Research Centre

SUMMARY

•The increase in the numbers of people from different ethnicbackgrounds and countries was one of the most significant changes inBritain during the 1990s. This paper uses data from the 1991 and 2001Censuses to describe the distribution of Britain's main minority ethnicgroups, and how it has changed, both across the country as a whole andin the four largest conurbations.

• Britain is still a predominantly white society, with 92% of its populationfrom the white majority in 2001. However, this picture is changing, witha rapidly increasing diversity of ethnic groups and cultures. According toCensus data, Britain's population grew by 4% in the 1990s. 73% of thisgrowth was due to minority ethnic groups, which grew by about 1.6million people compared with 600,000 in the white population. Thefastest growing group was 'Black African', more than doubling during thedecade. Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Chinese groups also saw rapid growth.

• Minority ethnic populations grew in virtually every local authority area,including those with very few minorities at the start of the decade as wellas those where minority ethnic communities were already established.Thisis consistent with the pattern of dispersal that was evident in the 1980s.

• As a percentage of their starting point, these increases were greatest inareas with small minority ethnic populations in 1991. However, thegreatest numerical increases were in areas where there were alreadysizeable minority ethnic populations, which were mainly inner urbanareas.This is consistent with a pattern of natural population growth andcontinuing immigration to join established family members.

•This population growth took place in the context of continuing counter-urbanisation and regional economic decline. While minority ethnicpopulations in inner urban areas continued to grow, white populationsin many of these areas continued to decline. As a result, minority ethnicgroups made up a greater share of the population of some urbanneighbourhoods in 2001 than they had in 1991.

•These twin patterns of dispersal and concentration present bothopportunities and challenges for the development of our increasinglymulti-cultural society.

The increase in the numbers of people from differentethnic backgrounds and countries is one of the mostsignificant changes in Britain since the 1991 Census.The2001 Census gives us the chance to quantify thesechanges and explain their significance in the areasaffected. In this paper, we use Census data from 2001 and1991 firstly to describe the distribution of Britain's mainminority ethnic groups; secondly to describe changes intheir distribution over the 1990s; and thirdly to showwhat has happened in four large conurbations includingLondon, for which we use electoral ward data to indicatechange at the neighbourhood level.

The story we tell is one of major continuing growth in theminority ethnic populations of the country and of thesecities in particular, far greater than the growth inpopulation as a whole. In numerical terms, the growth inminority populations has been greatest in areas wherethey were already well established. Often accompanied bydecreasing white populations, this has resulted in greaterconcentrations of minority groups within certain innerurban areas than was the case in 1991. Equally striking,however, is the continued trend, already visible in the1991 Census (Peach, 1996) towards growth of the moreestablished minority groups in other areas as well. Thenumber and proportion of people from minority ethnicgroups has grown in virtually every local authority area,even though the numbers remain small in many cases.Thus, the white population is becoming less isolated fromminority ethnic groups, as these groups spread and growin a larger number of areas, but at the same time, incertain inner urban neighbourhoods, minority ethnicgroups are becoming more isolated as their numbers growand white populations dwindle.

Knowing more about this changing composition of thepopulation and the pattern of settlement is interesting initself. But it is also important for policy makers andpractitioners in various fields to understand what ishappening so that responses can also adapt. Here we aimto present as objectively as possible what is actuallyhappening, where it is happening and on what scale, toprovide a basis for this understanding. In our conclusions,we discuss what implications can and cannot be drawnfrom the data, and their significance for policy.

In producing this series, we owe a debt of thanks to BruceKatz and other colleagues in Brookings for inspiring us toundertake the work jointly with them; to ProfessorWilliam Julius Wilson of Harvard for his constant interestin our work on poor neighbourhoods and his willingnessto join the wider urban debate in this country as well as inthe US; to Professors Tony Champion, DuncanMcLennan and Ivan Turok for their challenging adviceand willingness to share expertise; to David Lunts, headof the Urban Unit at ODPM and the many othercolleagues in government who have encouraged us to dothis work; also to Richard Best at the Joseph RowntreeFoundation for supporting our original work on the slowdeath of great cities and to Richard Rogers for sharing hisexpertise and experience in our follow up to the UrbanTask Force, Cities for a Small Country (Rogers andPower 2000).Throughout, we draw on our work in CASEfor the area study funded by the ESRC where we track 12

of the poorest urban areas in the country over 7 years,written up by Ruth Lupton (2003) and KatharineMumford and Anne Power (2003), and on the work ofour colleagues at the Center on Urban and MetropolitanPolicy at Brookings, whose work on the US Census canbe found at http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/issues/demographics/demographics.htm.

In producing this second brief, we are particularlygrateful to Ludi Simpson from the Cathie Marsh Centrefor Census and Survey Research at the University ofManchester for sharing his expertise, data and insights, toSarah Fielder at ODPM and to Becky Tunstall and VeslaWeaver who read and commented on the drafts. Censusdata has been made available by the Office for NationalStatistics under Crown Copyright and is reproduced herewith the permission of the Controller of HMSO and theQueen's Printer for Scotland.

ANALYSING ETHNIC CHANGE USING THE CENSUSThe Census of Population, conducted in England andWales by The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and inScotland by the General Register Office for Scotland(GRO), is the only source of data on the ethniccomposition of the population at small area level in GreatBritain. A question on ethnicity was introduced for thefirst time in 1991, meaning that the 2001 Census offersthe first chance to compare the geographical distributionof ethnic groups, over time, all previous attempts havingbeen based on estimation from questions about countryof birth. This is an important opportunity, not to bemissed.

There are, nevertheless, some difficulties in makingcomparisons over time. One is the problem of the use ofdifferent ethnic categories in 1991 and 2001, principallythe introduction of 'mixed race' options in 2001.While inthe 1991 Census, respondents could identify with one ofthe major ethnic groups or declare themselves 'other', in2001 they could identify in mixed categories, such as'mixed white and black British'. 674,000 people (morethan 1% of the population) identified as 'mixed race' in2001, with mixed black/white accounting for a little morethan half this number, and mixed white/Asian about onethird. This will have had an impact on numbers in all theother categories. For example the number in the 'Blackother' category dropped from 178,000 to 97,000 over thedecade and the number of people identifying as 'other'dropped from 290,000 in 1991 to 229,000 in 2001. Itseems likely that at least some of this change was due topeople re-classifying as mixed race in 2001. We cannot,however, tell how much.

Other problems arise from the general difficulty ofcomparing the 1991 and 2001 Censuses because ofunder-enumeration and changes in the counting ofstudents. 1991 Census counts were not adjusted to takeinto account estimated under-enumeration and thus werethought to be lower than the actual population. 2001Census counts were adjusted for under-enumerationprior to publication and are thought to be more accurate.

November 2004 • CASE-Brookings Census Briefs • No.22

MINORITY ETHNIC GROUPS IN BRITAIN 27

Local Authority

WansbeckNorth DevonWest DorsetEast LindseyAngusIsle of AngleseySouth AyrshireMidlothianSouth SomersetWychavonSouth NorfolkInverclydeFlintshireBolsoverSedgemoorSouth ShropshireRestormelNorth AyrshireWest SomersetNorth DorsetMendipPurbeckWear ValleyWyreNorth CornwallEast AyrshireAberdeenshireNorth ShropshireCaradonMid DevonNorth NorfolkSouth HamsMorayEast LothianWest DevonHambletonDerbyshire DalesSedgefieldSouth LakelandEilean SiarTorridgeStaffordshire MoorlandsForest of DeanCopelandEast DevonTeesdaleDerwentsideDumfries & GallowayTynedaleOrkney IslandsAllerdaleSelbyScottish BordersRyedaleBerwick-upon-TweedEdenAlnwickIsles of Scilly

Number ofpeople in all

minoritygroups 1991

326451451611568359579405727522523455713350482187421666154253464205300481348575

100624635629540934836336519933428337439711920737129227644491

32052819667

32020530113271

113571

Number ofpeople in all

minoritygroups 2001

639834

12251342854481763740

169613371214750

1194631

1161361

1022936285850

1219521494

1212711810

162864057355477274776565543563263856982017257472673948592620553796939986

572516589320103212123

6

Change innumbers of

minorities

31338377473128612218433596981569129548128167917460127013159775531619473136323562239421725936339940229023629835519542353

36735544720948211421744120319

2523112881883299665

% change innumbers of

minorities

96%85%

172%120%50%34%32%83%

133%156%132%65%67%80%

141%93%

143%41%85%

236%163%154%65%

152%104%41%62%

160%61%88%89%

115%111%79%

119%89%

125%52%

107%45%

177%96%

153%76%

109%125%68%84%

104%28%79%

152%96%

142%45%88%

116%500%

Minorities as% of LA

population1991

0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.3%0.3%0.3%0.3%0.3%0.3%0.3%0.2%0.2%0.0%

Minorities as % of LA

population 2001

1.0%1.0%1.3%1.0%0.8%0.7%0.7%0.9%1.1%1.2%1.1%0.9%0.8%0.9%1.1%0.9%1.1%0.7%0.8%1.4%1.2%1.2%0.8%1.1%0.9%0.7%0.7%1.1%0.7%0.8%0.8%0.9%0.9%0.7%0.9%0.8%0.9%0.7%0.8%0.6%1.0%0.8%0.9%0.7%0.7%0.8%0.6%0.7%0.7%0.4%0.6%0.7%0.6%0.6%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.3%

Percentagepoint increase

in minorities

0.5%0.4%0.8%0.5%0.3%0.2%0.2%0.4%0.6%0.7%0.6%0.4%0.3%0.4%0.6%0.4%0.6%0.2%0.3%0.9%0.7%0.7%0.3%0.7%0.4%0.2%0.3%0.7%0.3%0.3%0.3%0.5%0.4%0.3%0.5%0.3%0.5%0.2%0.4%0.2%0.6%0.4%0.5%0.3%0.4%0.5%0.3%0.3%0.3%0.1%0.3%0.4%0.3%0.4%0.1%0.2%0.2%0.2%

November 2004 • CASE-Brookings Census Briefs • No.226

Local Authority

FyldeBaberghWest LancashireNorth WarwickshireNewark and SherwoodWrexhamHalton UAFenlandMerthyr TydfilNeath Port TalbotBostonFifeIsle of Wight UANorth KestevenTaunton DeaneClackmannanshireConwyCongletonTorbay UAVale RoyalHartlepool UATewkesburyTorfaenSouth LanarkshirePenwithCaerphillyTendringWaveneyRedcar and Cleveland UAAshfieldMonmouthshireSt HelensStratford-on-AvonHigh PeakNew ForestChester-le-StreetFalkirkRenfrewshireDenbighshireEllesmere Port and NestonChristchurchEasingtonBridgnorthWest LindseyAmber ValleyCarrickCarlisleStroudPembrokeshireBarnsleyPerth & KinrossMid SuffolkBlyth ValleyHerefordshire, County of UAPowysScarboroughOswestryKerrierShetland IslandsMalvern HillsWest DunbartonshireEast DorsetEast Riding of Yorkshire UANorth East DerbyshireBlaenau GwentBarrow-in-FurnessTeignbridgeCarmarthenshireSouth HollandHighland

Number ofpeople in all

minoritygroups 1991

548614828465783938933561442

1025394

2519910582681344764605856815644498627

2046406

1159859726978730537

1200708567

1064345910

1117558510257606311469685504605610658

1296744455461925685609192500128388543440

1620539399400592919367

1107

Number ofpeople in all

minoritygroups 2001

105110721605839

1551140314251173564

1448858

4426174910301597403

115710481601150110421068852

3404675

15481853140014731185964

2056146211241935531

1491213910731004489719468774

10871150893

1435102619941308860779

157610861029420828232

1032666847

38201074581567

12161623881

1671

Change innumbers of

minorities

503458777374768465492612122423464

190783944891659

393443745686398570225

1358269389994674495455427856754557871186581

1022515494232113157305402646288825368698564405318651401420228328104644123407

2200535182167624704514564

% change innumbers of

minorities

92%75%94%80%98%50%53%

109%28%41%

118%76%92%77%

135%17%51%73%87%84%62%

114%36%66%66%34%

116%93%51%62%80%71%

106%98%82%54%64%91%92%97%90%19%50%65%59%

128%48%

135%56%54%76%89%69%70%59%69%

119%66%81%

166%23%93%

136%99%46%42%

105%77%

140%51%

Minorities as% of LA

population1991

0.8%0.8%0.8%0.8%0.8%0.8%0.8%0.8%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.7%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.6%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.5%

Minorities as % of LA

population 2001

1.4%1.3%1.5%1.4%1.5%1.1%1.2%1.4%1.0%1.1%1.5%1.3%1.3%1.1%1.6%0.8%1.1%1.2%1.2%1.2%1.2%1.4%0.9%1.1%1.1%0.9%1.3%1.2%1.1%1.1%1.1%1.2%1.3%1.3%1.1%1.0%1.0%1.2%1.2%1.2%1.1%0.8%0.9%1.0%0.9%1.3%0.9%1.3%0.9%0.9%1.0%1.0%1.0%0.9%0.9%1.0%1.1%0.9%1.1%1.4%0.7%1.0%1.2%1.1%0.8%0.8%1.0%0.9%1.2%0.8%

Percentagepoint increase

in minorities

0.7%0.5%0.7%0.6%0.7%0.3%0.5%0.7%0.3%0.3%0.8%0.5%0.6%0.4%0.8%0.1%0.3%0.4%0.5%0.5%0.5%0.7%0.2%0.4%0.4%0.2%0.7%0.6%0.4%0.4%0.5%0.5%0.6%0.6%0.5%0.3%0.4%0.6%0.5%0.6%0.5%0.1%0.3%0.4%0.3%0.7%0.3%0.7%0.3%0.3%0.4%0.4%0.4%0.3%0.3%0.4%0.6%0.3%0.5%0.9%0.1%0.5%0.7%0.6%0.3%0.2%0.5%0.4%0.6%0.3%

This means that comparisons of 1991 and 2001 Censusdata probably show greater increases in population thanactually occurred, especially in urban areas where under-counting was worst. They also show artificially highincreases in urban areas because the 2001 Censuscounted students at their term addresses, while the 1991Census counted them at their vacation addresses.Students are disproportionately located in large townsand cities during term time, rather than in smaller ruralsettlements.1

When overall population change is being considered,these problems may be overcome to a certain extent bythe use of mid-year estimates (MYEs), which are adjustedfor under-enumeration and to incorporate students atterm addresses. We used MYEs when we reported onpopulation change in the first paper in this series.Unfortunately, for individual Census questions, such asethnicity, MYEs are not available. In this paper, therefore,we use two approaches. In the first part of the paper,when we are discussing change at the national and localauthority levels, we use published Census data from both1991 and 2001.When considering these findings, we needto bear in mind that overall population increases for largeurban areas are probably over-stated (and decreasesunder-stated), to the order of about four to six percentagepoints. For example, Liverpool's population declined by3% according to the Census figures, and 7% according tothe MYEs. Increases in minority ethnic populations areprobably particularly over-stated, because these groupswere particularly likely to have been under-counted in the1991 Census.

In the latter part of the paper, when we turn to analysingchange at the electoral ward level, we adopt a morecomplicated approach because our closer geographicalfocus in this section makes our analysis more vulnerableto errors in Census counts. In this section we base ourcalculations not on Census data for 1991 but on wardpopulation estimates calculated by the ESRC Estimatingwith Confidence project in the late 1990s.2 These takeinto account estimates of undercounting of ethnicminorities in the 1991 Census, and thus offer a moreaccurate picture of local change than do raw Censuscounts, although they do not overcome the problem ofstudents being counted at their vacation addresses.Similar estimates have not been prepared for 2001 and asfar as we are aware there are no plans to do this, becauseof the greater accuracy of the 2001 data. We thereforecompare SOCPOP estimates for 1991 with Census datafor 2001.

With these caveats in mind, we present data on Britain'sethnic minorities in 2001, and on changes during the1990s, at the national, local authority and neighbourhoodlevel.

BRITAIN'S ETHNIC MINORITIESBritain has traditionally been, and remains, apredominantly white nation, with 92% of its populationin 2001 declaring themselves white British, white Irish, or'white other', a category that includes white people fromold Commonwealth countries (such as Australians, New

Zealanders, Canadians and white South Africans) andwhite Europeans.

The minority ethnic population has grown rapidly sincethe early 1950s, when it numbered less than 100,000people and was largely confined to dockland areas incities such as London, Liverpool, Cardiff and Bristol.Since then, there has been rapid expansion, initiallyfuelled by the need for labour in manufacturing andservice industries. Black people of Caribbean origin werethe earliest arrivals in the post war period of expandedimmigration, settling in London and other major cities.The high point of Caribbean immigration was the mid1950s to mid 1960s, and there has been little change inthe overall size of the black Caribbean population since1971. Other groups arrived later and continued to grow.Pakistanis and Indians began to arrive in large numbers inthe mid 1960s and Bangladeshi arrivals peaked in theearly 1980s (Peach 1996).These South Asian groups alsosettled in large cities and, in the case of Pakistani andBangladeshi immigrants, in smaller textile towns inLancashire and Yorkshire where there was demand for 24-hour labour. All of these groups have grownconsistently and rapidly (Figure 1). The black Africanpopulation was relatively small until the 1990s, so muchso that it was not considered a 'major group' for Peach'sanalysis of the 1991 Census on which Figure 1 is based,but doubled between 1991 and 2001, with settlementpredominantly in London. As at 2001, the major minorityethnic groups were Indians (1,052,000), Pakistanis(747,000), black Caribbeans (566,000), and blackAfricans (485,000) with smaller Bangladeshi (283,000)and Chinese populations (243,000), in addition to thoseidentifying as mixed race (674,000) (Table 1). 'OtherAsian', 'Other Black' and 'Other' groups make up theremainder of the minority ethnic total.

1 Fuller explanations of the comparability of 1991 and 2001 data can be found on theNational Statistics website (www.statistics.gov.uk).

2 These estimates are known as the SOCPOP estimates and can be found at the CensusDissemination Unit website (http://census.ac.uk/cdu/Datasets/1991_Census_datasets/Area_Stats/Adjusted_data/Undercount_adjusted_data/SOCPOP).

MINORITY ETHNIC GROUPS IN BRITAIN 3

FIGURE 1: Growth of Minority Ethnic Populations in Britain1951-2001

THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OFMINORITY ETHNIC GROUPSThe original settlement patterns of immigrant groups intowns and cities where their labour was in demand andwhere older private housing was available have resulted ina very uneven distribution of minority ethnic groups,skewed heavily towards the inner areas of London andcertain other cities and towns.

Map 1 shows the distribution of people from minorityethnic groups in 2001. It shows a strongly urban pattern,with high concentrations in London and the surroundingarea, in Birmingham and the cities of the Midlands suchas Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham and Derby, inLancashire and West and South Yorkshire and in othercities such as Glasgow, Liverpool, Bristol and Cardiff.

Maps 2-7 show the distribution of the different groups in2001.They show the same urban pattern. In the broadestterms, minority ethnic groups tended to be settled in thelarge cities and industrial towns where there were otherminority ethnic groups. However the patterns were notexactly the same for the different groups:

•The Indian population was concentrated in London,and in the cities of the Midlands, and in Lancashire andWest Yorkshire.

• The Pakistani population was strongly represented inManchester, Lancashire and West Yorkshire and also inBirmingham and the Midlands cities, with a smallerproportion of the population in London than was thecase for Indians.

•The Bangladeshi population was concentrated inLondon and to a lesser extent Birmingham.

•The Black Caribbean population had a similar patternto the Bangladeshi population but with London evenmore dominant.

• Black Africans were very heavily concentrated inLondon.

• Chinese were more widely dispersed than other groups.

November 2004 • CASE-Brookings Census Briefs • No.24

Popu

latio

n in

Tho

usan

ds

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

01951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001

West Indian or CaribbeanIndianPakistaniBangladeshiBlack African

TABLE 1: Size of Ethnic Groups in Britain 2001 (with 1991for comparison)

1991 2001 % of total % of minoritypopulation population population ethnic

(000s) (000s) 2001 population 2001

White 51873 52481 92All minority ethnic groups 3014 4623 8 100Black Caribbean 500 566 1 12Black African 212 485 1 10Black Other 178 97 0 2Indian 840 1052 2 23Pakistani 477 747 1 16Bangladeshi 163 283 0 6Other Asian 197 247 0 5Chinese 157 243 0 5Other 290 229 0 5Mixed race 0 674 1 15

Note: Columns do not sum to 100% due to roundingSource: 2001 Census: Key Statistics Table 6.

Source: 1951-1991 data reproduced from Peach (1996).2001 data from 2001 Census Key Statistics Table 6.

MAP 1: All Ethnic Minorities 2001

1 dot = 500 people