Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom

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This article is about ethnic groups in the United Kingdom regardless of birthplace. For foreign-born groups in the United Kingdom, see Foreign-born population of the United Kingdom.

People from various ethnic groups reside in the United Kingdom. Migration from what are now the Northern European states has been happening for millennia, with other groups such as British Jews also well established. Since World War II, substantial immigration from the New Commonwealth, Europe, and the rest of the world has altered the demography of many cities in the United Kingdom.Contents [hide]

1 History

2 Official classification of ethnicity

3 2001 Census ethnicity results

4 Multiculturalism and integration

4.1 Attitudes to multiculturalism

5 See also

6 References

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History

Historically, British people were thought to be descended from the varied ethnic stocks that settled there before the 11th century; the pre-Celts, Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Norse and the Normans.[1] Recent analysis indicates that the majority of the traceable ancestors of the modern British population arrived between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago and that the British broadly share a common ancestry with the Basque people,[2] although there is no consensus amongst geneticists.[3]

The United Kingdom has a long history of migration, with Liverpool having the oldest black population in the country, dating back to at least the 1730s,[4] and the oldest Chinese community in Europe, dating to the arrival of Chinese seamen in the 19th century.[5] Many Huguenots arrived in Britain as refugees from France in the late 17th century[6] and the 19th century witnessed considerable immigration of Irish people and Jews.[1] After World War Two, substantial migration from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia was a legacy of the British Empire,[7][8] but there was also substantial immigration from European countries including Poland.[1][9] More recently, migration flows have diversified, which has led some academics to coin the term "super-diversity" to describe the UK population's composition.[10][11]

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Official classification of ethnicity

Main article: Classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom

The 2001 UK Census classified ethnicity into several groups: White, Black, Asian, Mixed, Chinese and Other.[12][13] These categories form the basis for all National Statistics ethnicity statistics.[13]

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2001 Census ethnicity results

According to the 2001 Census, the ethnic composition of the United Kingdom was:[14]Ethnic group Population Proportion of total UK population

White British 50,366,497 85.67%

White (other) 3,096,169 5.27%

White Irish 691,232 1.2%

Mixed race 677,117 1.2%

Indian 1,053,411 1.8%

Pakistani 747,285 1.3%

Bangladeshi 283,063 0.5%

Other Asian (non-Chinese) 247,644 0.4%

Black Caribbean 565,876 1.0%

Black African 485,277 0.8%

Black (others) 97,585 0.2%

Chinese 247,403 0.4%

Other 230,615 0.4%

Ethnicity data was not collected for Northern Ireland in the 1991 Census, making comparison between 1991 and 2001 impossible for the UK. Data was collected for Great Britain and comparison shows that the ethnic minority population there grew from 3.0 million in 1991 to 4.6 million in 2001, a rise of 53 per cent.[15] People of mixed ethnicity are the fastest growing of the ethnic groups categorised by the Office for National Statistics.[16]

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Multiculturalism and integration

With considerable migration after the Second World War making the UK an increasingly ethnically and racially diverse state, race relations policies have been developed that broadly reflect the principles of multiculturalism, although there is no official national commitment to multiculturalism.[17][18][19] This model has faced criticism on the grounds that it has failed to sufficiently promote social integration,[20][21][22] although some commentators have questioned the dichotomy between diversity and integration that this critique presumes.[21] It has been argued that the UK government has since 2001, moved away from policy characterised by multiculturalism and towards the assimilation of minority communities.[23]

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Attitudes to multiculturalism

See also: Criticism of multiculturalism

A poll conducted by MORI for the BBC in 2005 found that 62 per cent of respondents agreed that multiculturalism made Britain a better place to live, compared to 32 percent who saw it as a threat.[24] Ipsos MORI data from 2008 by contrast, showed that only 30 per cent saw multiculturalism as making Britain a better place to live, with 38 per cent seeing it as a threat. 41 per cent of respondents to the 2008 poll favoured the development of a shared identity over the celebration of diverse values and cultures, with 27 per cent favouring the latter and 30 per cent undecided.[25]

A study conducted for the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) in 2005 found that in England, the majority of ethnic minority participants called themselves British, whereas indigenous English participants said English first and British second. In Wales and Scotland the majority of white and ethnic minority participants said Welsh or Scottish first and British second, although they saw no incompatibility between the two identities.[26] Other research conducted for the CRE found that white participants felt that there was a threat to Britishness from large-scale immigration, the 'unfair' claims that they perceived ethnic minorities made on the welfare state, a rise in moral pluralism and perceived political correctness. Much of this frustration was vented at Muslims rather than minorities in general. Muslim participants in the study reported feeling victimised and stated that they felt that they were being asked to choose between Muslim and British identities, whereas they saw it possible to be both.

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