This article possibly contains original research .(October 2022) |
Total population | |
---|---|
United Kingdom: 55,592,837 – 83.0% (2021/22 Census) England: 45,783,401 – 81.0% (2021) [1] Scotland: 5,051,875 – 93.0% (2022) [2] Wales: 2,915,848 – 94.0% (2021) [1] Northern Ireland: 1,841,713 – 97.0% (2021) [3] | |
Languages | |
British English · Hiberno-English · Polish · Romanian · Welsh Angloromani · Beurla Reagaird · Cornish · French · German · Irish · Italian · Scottish Gaelic · Shelta [ citation needed ] | |
Religion | |
Predominantly Christianity (51.3%); minority follows other faiths (1.6%) [a] or are irreligious (41.3%) 2021 census, NI, England and Wales only [4] [5] | |
Related ethnic groups | |
White Americans · White South Africans · White Australians · White New Zealanders · Irish People · White Canadians [ citation needed ] |
White people in the United Kingdom are a multi-ethnic group consisting of European UK residents who identify as and are perceived to be 'white people'. White people constitute the historical and current majority of the people living in the United Kingdom, with 83.0% of the population identifying as white in the 2021 United Kingdom census.[ citation needed ]
The Office for National Statistics designates white people into several subgroups, with small terminology variations between the administrative jurisdictions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are local: White British, White Irish, White Gypsy or Irish Traveller, and immigrant descended Other White, and in Scotland; White Polish. In Northern Ireland ethnic group data is collected differently, where only the term 'White' is used, and with National Identity ('British', 'Irish', 'Northern Irish', or combinations) collected separately.[ citation needed ]
British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, and can influence who may be defined, whether informally, in media and academia, or UK Government statistics, as white Britons or white British people. Millions of white people in the United Kingdom, who hold British citizenship, do not identify with the White British ethnicity classification (or its subgroups, such as 'White English', 'White Welsh' or 'White Scottish') at censuses.[ citation needed ]
Outside of the census, white people in Great Britain have been the subject of academic research, and have featured in public discourse in international and British media, in which they often are identified as a broad racial or social class within the country.[ citation needed ]
White people in the United Kingdom are studied, polled, and analysed as a demographic, anthropological, economic, and social grouping. The scope of the definition often exceeds categorisation by the Office for National Statistics, and its ethnicity or nation-defined subcategories, such as White British or White Polish.[ citation needed ]
Within the Census in the United Kingdom, the Office for National Statistics collects information on white people who are resident in the United Kingdom, regardless of citizenship status. As censuses have progressed each decade, further categories have been included to accommodate subgroupings of white people in the country. As of the 2011 census, these subgroups are White British, White Irish, White Gypsy or Irish Traveller, White Polish (in Scotland), and Other White. There are small variations between the phrasing or terminology of these categories across the administrative regions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. [6]
A multitude of scholars, academics, statisticians, and scientists, as well as government departments, think tanks, trade unions, and charities, have identified white people in the United Kingdom as an observable demographic, historical, anthropological, economic, social and racial grouping.
In governmental terms, the UK Government uses the category of white people to help define and understand demography in the country. The Office for National Statistics collects census information on white people. [6] Devolved administrations, such as the Scottish Government and Welsh Government make use of the racial category for social and equality impacts. [7] [8] Ministerial departments such as the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, [9] [10] non-ministerial, such as the Cabinet Office and office for Mayor of London, [11] [12] HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, [13] and public bodies such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, [14] and UK Statistics Authority, have produced research and analysis on, what they have defined as, white persons within the country. [15] [16]
Academic, research and statistical organisations, such as British Election Study, NatCen Social Research and ICM Research, Savanta ComRes, define and categorise whites living in the UK, in order to study and poll respondents of all backgrounds. [17] [18] [19] [20] Think tanks, including the Policy Studies Institute, Resolution Foundation, Smith Institute and Social Issues Research Centre, utilise the grouping of white people in the United Kingdom, [21] [7] [22] [23] along with Stroke Association and Trades Union Congress. [24] [25]
Sociologists, social scientists, and academics of race and ethnicity, such as Peter J. Aspinall, Richard Dyer and Mary J. Hickman identify whites in Britain as an intersecting social and racial category. [26] [27] [28]
University of the West of Scotland's Chris Gilligan argues that; "The idea that White people in the United Kingdom constitute a race or ethnic group is based on racialised thinking. It works with the logic of the race relations framework, it does not challenge it." [29] In her 2015 research, University of Southampton fellow Rosalind Willis studied the intersection of the White Irish category in England, where there have been examples of distinctions made against the White British which are culturally rejected or ignored. [30] In this regard, professor Mary J. Hickman has written how a combination of othering the ethnic Irish, and a presupposition of the positivity of integration, has provided "tacit support for the 'myth of homogeneity' of white people in Britain". [27]
In July 2019, the East Ham constituency Labour branch was criticised for its election of a white Irish woman as the women’s officer for its Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) forum. The woman in question self-identified as being an ethnic minority and no objections within the branch were raised against her election. Branch secretary, Syed Taqi Shah commented that "if somebody self-declares [as BAME], and the Labour Party allows them to do so, they should be respected." [31] [32]
White people are the current and historical majority of the United Kingdom's population. The 2011 United Kingdom census recorded 55,010,359 of White and 63,193 of Gypsy/Traveller/Irish Traveller ethnicity, making a total white population of 55,073,552 or 87.2 per cent of the total population. These figures did not include self-reported people of mixed ethnicity. [6] [33]
United Kingdom NUTS 1 Region's | Year | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1971 estimations [34] [35] [36] | 1981 estimations [37] [38] [39] [36] | 1991 [40] | 2001 [41] [42] [43] | 2011 [44] [45] [46] | 2021 [47] | |||||||
Number | Percentage | Number | Percentage | Number | Percentage | Number | Percentage | Number | Percentage | Number | Percentage | |
Northern Ireland | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1,672,698 | 99.25% | 1,779,750 | 98.28% | 1,841,713 | 96.77% |
Scotland | – | 99.6% | 4,908,140 | 99.1% | 4,935,933 | 98.74% | 4,960,334 | 97.99% | 5,084,407 | 96.02% | 5,051,875 | 92.9% |
Wales | – | 99.6% | 2,788,533 | 99.1% | 2,793,522 | 98.5% | 2,841,505 | 97.9% | 2,928,253 | 95.6% | 2,915,848 | 94.2% |
England | – | – | – | 95.4% | 44,144,339 | 93.8% | 44,679,361 | 91% | 45,281,142 | 85.4% | 45,783,401 | 81% |
North East England | – | 99.6% | 2,544,069 | 99% | 2,507,133 | 98.6% | 2,455,416 | 97.61% | 2,475,567 | 95.32% | 2,462,720 | 93.1% |
South West England | – | – | – | – | 4,546,848 | 98.6% | 4,815,316 | 97.7% | 5,046,429 | 95.41% | 5,309,608 | 93.1% |
North West England | – | 98.7% | 6,580,840 | 97.5% | 6,480,131 | 96.3% | 6,355,495 | 94.43% | 6,361,716 | 90.2% | 6,347,394 | 85.6% |
Yorkshire and the Humber | – | 98.1% | 4,600,341 | 96.8% | 4,622,503 | 95.6% | 4,641,263 | 93.48% | 4,691,956 | 88.8% | 4,679,965 | 85.5% |
East of England | – | 99.3% | – | 98.5% | 4,891,675 | 96.8% | 5,125,003 | 95.11% | 5,310,194 | 90.81% | 5,478,364 | 86.5% |
East Midlands | – | 98% | 3,598,625 | 96.2% | 3,765,389 | 95.2% | 3,900,380 | 93.48% | 4,046,356 | 89.26% | 4,179,774 | 85.7% |
South East England | – | – | – | – | 7,271,256 | 96.9% | 7,608,989 | 95.10% | 7,827,820 | 90.65% | 8,009,38 | 86.2% |
West Midlands | – | 95.9% | 4,716,950 | 93.5% | 4,725,824 | 91.8% | 4,674,296 | 88.74% | 4,633,669 | 82.7% | 4,585,024 | 77% |
Greater London | – | 92.6% | 5,663,496 | 85.7% | 5,333,580 | 79.8% | 5,103,203 | 71.2% | 4,887,435 | 59.8% | 4,731,172 | 53.8% |
Overall in the United Kingdom: | – | 97.5% | – | 96% | 51,873,794 | 94.5% | 54,153,898 | 92.12% | 55,073,552 | 87.2% | 55,592,837 | 83.0% |
In the 1991 census, white people were recorded as the most likely group to have tertiary education. By the 2001 census, this had changed, with British African-Caribbean females, and British Indian men and women, becoming more likely to be qualified to that level. [48]
Based on the 1994 Policy Studies Institute's NSEM survey, an International Migration Review-published study determined a factor of this shift, finding that between the ages of 21–64, 13.8% of British Hindus held a higher education, versus what the study defined as 11.3% of "White Christians" in Britain. [21] The Welsh Government's 2007 Minority Ethnic Youth Forum Report found that, based on 2005 ONS data; "Interestingly, Chinese, Black African, Indian and Other Asian groups are more likely to have degrees than white people in the UK." [8] In England, since 2007, out of all ethnicities aged 18 years old who have received a state education, white pupils have had the lowest rate of entry into higher education and have also seen the lowest rate of increase, from 21.8% in 2007 to 32.2% in 2022. For comparison, 70.7% of Chinese pupils and 50.6% of Black pupils gained a higher education place in the same year. [49]
The history of the racial classification of white people has its roots in the establishment of European colonies in Asia, Africa and the Americas, where they encountered and lived alongside people of colour. The United Kingdom [50] Historian Marika Sherwood writes that while there is no implication that "all whites in Britain were or became imbued with racism"; the classification of the "white race" rose in the nineteenth century due in part to the increasing rise of the eugenics and scientific racism movements of thought, with anthropologists classifying whites as distinct and separate race from other races such as Africans and Asians. [51]
After physician John Fothergill disparagingly referred to them as "nabobs"; in 1767, the Daily Gazetteer , within the context of their return to England, made the accusation that West Indian planters (such as those involved with the East India Company) were corrupting Britain's political system, and who "being bred the tyrants of their slavish blacks, may endeavour to reduce the white [in Britain] to the same condition by an aristocracy". [52]
Social scientist Peter J. Aspinall has analyzed how interracial marriage in the UK, as a phenomenon, caused societal reactions from whites in the interwar, and post-World War II periods. These included violence and racism against African-American GIs, Chinese seamen, and towards children from their relationships with white women. Aspinall, an expert in ethnicity, wrote: [28]
Such experiences were shared by interracial people, couples and families throughout the twentieth century with their mere presence provoking or exacerbating the violence of white people in Britain, as evidenced during the numerous 'race riots', disturbances and attacks that occurred throughout the period.
This post-war period of history was recognised by Mill Hill School's marking of Black History Month, when the London school published a short history of the Windrush generation, including the abuse received by arrivals such as Floella Benjamin, exploring how; "Unfortunately, many white people in Britain did not welcome the new arrivals and Floella, and many like her were faced with hatred and cruelty." [53] Politician Enoch Powell, who became known for his anti-immigrant Rivers of Blood speech, has been identified by some media as an early source of defining white people as a racial interest group within Britain. In 1971, Powell had argued that "whites are being held back to accommodate the Asiatics and blacks". [54]
According to the ONS's quarterly Labour Force Survey, in 1993-1994 white people undertook more employer‐funded training per capita than minority groups in the UK. Analysis by economists, Michael Shields and Stephen Wheatley Price, suggested that the situation may represent a failure in United Kingdom employment equality laws. [55] Anthony Lester, a key contributor to such legislation, stated in 1991 that "White people in Britain don't have the legacy of guilt about the past as there is in America about the period of slavery, even though there is plenty to be guilty about". [56]
In another comparison of the two nations, while accepting that "any portrait of Britain as a haven of multicultural understanding and friendship among different groups is an exaggeration"; University of Maryland professor Eric Uslaner has observed that "the effect of segregation on civic norms is far more pronounced for whites in the United States compared to whites in Britain." [57] Scholar Ron Walters also stressed the significance of correlation between white majorities and their behavioural patterns in the UK and US. Lecturer Clarence Lusane has written of Walter's use of themes, such as the "cultural similarity with regard to racial attitudes of Whites in Britain and the United States" and also, "the reception by the White host societies" towards black communities. [58]
The 2008 BBC series White attempted to address issues of white-related class and race issues in the country. Academic Vron Ware described the documentary as "a provocative series that claimed to address the marginality of working class white people in Britain." [59] Based on data from eligible voters, white people overall voted to leave the European Union in 2016's Brexit referendum in higher proportions than other racial groups in the country. [9]
University of Essex professor Richard Berthoud has proposed that between 1970 and 2000, white families in Britain progressed towards modern individualism, and away from other traditional behaviours. [60]
Based on a 243-person study (103 whites, 83 British Pakistanis, and 57 British Indians) in Bradford, England in 1988, white people had higher rates of drinking and smoking than Asian British people. [61] This correlated with a study around 30 years later, which found that alcohol consumption is higher among whites in Britain than other groups. In 2017 the Mayor of London office published that; "51 per cent of ethnic minorities, and 16 per cent of white people, in Britain in 2017 had not consumed alcohol in the last week." [12] A 2018 Stroke Association report also found that white people had the highest levels of alcohol consumption and smoking in the UK. [24] White people in England are more likely to drink at levels classed as 'hazardous, harmful or dependent' than all other ethnic groups. [62]
White people are usually defined, in scholarly works and media, as the majority group in the country. [63] [16] It is not always clear whether majority-based terminology is dependent on cultural perceptions, statistics (such as ONS censuses and UK Statistics Authority's Citizenship Surveys) or a combination of multiple factors. The scope of the term of white people, or reference to a white majority within the UK, is sometimes a source of debate or controversy. [64] For example, Richard Dyer's work, an academic who specialises in racial representations, suggests the ethnicity of white people in Britain is rarely scrutinised. [26]
There have been social challenges to integration, and adjustment to multiculturalism, in the United Kingdom among the white population. A study conducted by NatCen Social Research asked whites in the UK a number of questions, including: "Do you think most white people in Britain would mind/would you mind if a close relative were to marry a person of black or West Indian/Asian origin?" The results found that between 1983 and 2013, the white participants' opinions on "white people in Britain" dropped from around 80% 'would mind' to under 60%, and their personal opinions moved from around 60% to just over 30%. [18] [65] A publicly-funded Citizenship Survey found that 56 percent of "Whites in Britain" had friendships exclusively with other white people. [15] Based on analysis of the Citizenship Survey, academics Anthony Heath and Yaojun Li wrote:
[I]t is in fact the whites who are by far the most likely to have friends only from their own race - that is other whites. Given the much larger number of whites in Britain, and the geographical concentration of ethnic minorities in large conurbations, many whites will not have opportunity to meet ethnic minorities. [66]
A 1982 study of riots in the UK in India Quarterly , outlined what it described as a "substantial displacement of the local whites in Britain." The journal suggested that "this has occurred in certain areas like Birmingham, Brixton, Manchester, Southall, Toxteth, Wolverhampton", and that "to a great extent this clustering has hampered the assimilation process." [67] After the 1991 United Kingdom census, newspaper The Independent reported: "Yet Britain as a whole remains very white indeed; there is nothing "multicultural" about it. At the census in 1991, ethnic minorities came to about 5.5 per cent of the population: that is, just over three million in a total population of almost 55 million." [68]
In 2000, The Observer reported the demographic prediction that white people would become a minority group in all or certain parts of the UK, while remaining the largest singular group (which is sometimes defined as a majority minority scenario). Governmental advisor, Lee Jasper, stated that "the demographics show that white people in London will become a minority by 2010", and that 'We could have a majority black Britain by the turn of the century." [69] Runnymede Trust, a leading British race equality think tank, published criticism which took issue with assumptions of future birth rates, and an "inadequacy" in the "use of the term 'whites'." [70]
A 2010 Ethnic and Racial Studies study, which analyzed UK and US census data, showed that Black people in Britain were more likely to have a UK born White partner or spouse than their US counterparts. [71] With regard to censuses, the White British category has, at times, been the focus of demography (above other groupings, such as White Irish) particularly in journalistic media. [27] In 2012, The Telegraph reported that the percentage reduction in white people recorded at the 2011 census had occurred "despite an influx" of White Polish people. [72]
A 2005 Smith Institute report on migration noted that income, and employment rates, of "British-born white individuals" and "foreign-born whites" were similar in the United Kingdom, and diverged almost inseparably in comparison with "non-white immigrants". [22] According to the Social Issues Research Centre, there is still, however, significant diversity within the white populace in terms of income. In 2008, the Oxford-based institute also reported that whites experienced half the rates of low income households as do ethnic minorities. [23] In 2009, writing for a Runnymede Trust publication, University of Iceland researcher Kjartan Sveinsson wrote: [73] [74]
Feigning white working-class disadvantage as an ethnic disadvantage rather than as class disadvantage is exactly what rhetorically places this group in direct competition with minority ethnic groups. As such, it does little to address the real and legitimate grievances poor white people in Britain have.
Between 2012 and 2013, the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that white people were far less likely to live in poverty, compared with what the report defined as "Ethnic minority people". [14] Trades Union Congress research in 2017, [25] which was analyzed by the Scottish Government, showed that white people had higher rates of general employment and less chance of insecure employment, such as seasonal or agency work, than other racial groups in the Britain. [7] A 2019 study found that on income-related demography, British Indians are the only census-based ethnic group with similar earnings to white people in the UK. [75]
White people in the United Kingdom have the lowest rates of household crowding, with two percent of the population experiencing it. [76]
White people face less discrimination in the United Kingdom than ethnic minorities. For example, European Network Against Racism notes that white people in the country are around six times less likely than black people, and half as likely as Asians, to be stopped by police. [77] The British Election Study has defined "white people" in Britain, as part of a poll of 2,049 ethnic minority respondents regarding opinions on equal opportunity in British society. [17] [78]
The Centre for Economic Performance revealed in a 2014 study that "Many white people in the UK feel that social landlords actively discriminate against them in favour of immigrants and ethnic minorities." Analyzing this trend, professor Alan Manning found "no basis in reality for this perceived discrimination". [79] Mona Chalabi, a notable data journalist, writing in 2015, suggested that while racism from white people in the UK has a greater significance than from ethnic minorities; "a lot of other white people in Britain genuinely believe racism affects them too". [80] Journalist Simon Kelner has stated a similar view, posing the question "Can white people in Britain really feel they're the victims of racism?" [81]
In 2016, the Ministry of Justice issued a report noting that "white people in Britain" were four times less likely to be in prison than black Britons. [10] In 2017, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary found by studying England and Wales data that; "White people in the United Kingdom are more likely to be carrying drugs when stopped by police but less likely to be stopped, compared to black people who are disproportionately searched". [13] Between 2017 and 2018, Home Office data revealed that Dorset was the county where police were least likely to question white people in comparison with ethnic minority groups. Whites had around 17 times less chance of being subjected to Stop and Search. [9]
In a 2018 ICM Research poll conducted between 2013 and 2018, 4% of white people in the United Kingdom believed they had been treated like a shoplifter; 9% asked to leave an establishment for what seemed like no good reason; 18% believed they had been unfairly overlooked for a job; 52% felt a stranger was rude or abusive to them. (The results were 47% (treated like shoplifter), 25% (asked to leave), 43% (overlooked for job), and 69% (received abuse), respectively, for members of the BAME community). [19] A 2019 United Nations Human Rights Council report noted that the Cabinet Office's Race Disparity Unit had number of findings in relation to racism, including that; "One of the primary discoveries made through the audit had been that ethnic minorities were worse off than white people in the United Kingdom." [11] In 2020, a CNN and Savanta ComRes survey revealed that, among many other findings, that around half of white people in the country believed there was a fair representation of ethnic minorities in film and television (while 17 percent of black British people agreed). Whites were also twice as likely to say they had been treated with respect by British police. [20]
In a 1995 study, sociologist Jock Young found that of 1000 randomly selected residents of Finsbury Park when asked if they had been stopped by the police over the past year, the White Irish population was disproportionately affected with 14.3%, in contrast to 12.8% of Black Caribbean and 5.8% of White British people. The researchers found the Police tactic of 'lurking and larking', whereby constables would wait outside Irish pubs and clubs to make arrests to be to blame for the high statistics, which was labelled a form of 'institutional racism'. [82] [83]
1983 research of breast cancer rates in Birmingham, England found that whites in the United Kingdom had significantly higher rates of the disease than black and Asian people who had migrated to the country. The study examined white people who were born in either the UK or Republic of Ireland. [84] A 1999 study revealed that white people in the country had lower mortality rates from stroke than black people. [85]
In 2007, professor Andrew Hattersley studied the genomes of whites in the United Kingdom (as well as Finland and Italy), discovering what some researchers described as the first clear genetic link, via the FTO gene, to obesity. Presence of the gene beyond that initial subject pool was not yet studied. [86] [87]
White people are the most likely racial group to have a form of atrial fibrillation conditions. The same 2018 data also showed that whites were around half as likely to suffer a stroke than black people in Britain. [24] Among a number of other disparities, 2019 research demonstrated that whites in Britain were prescribed antipsychotic drugs (as dementia treatment) for around 4 weeks less on average than black Britons, placing the latter into an excess of dosage recommendations. [88]
Research published in 2022, found that white people in England are more likely to develop cancer than black, mixed and Asian ethnic groups. Overall, compared to the white population, cancer rates were 40% lower in those of mixed-heritage, 38% lower in Asian people and 4% lower in black people. [89] [90] Generally, whites in England and Wales are more likely to die of cancer than their black or Asian counterparts. [91]
Analysis published in 2023 comparing the risk of dying by suicide across sociodemographic groups in England and Wales reveal suicide rates were highest in the white (and mixed) ethnic groups for both men and women. [92] White people in England are also more likely to have self-harmed than people from the Asian, mixed and black ethnic groups. [93]
White people are less likely to die from COVID-19 than any other racial group in the United Kingdom. [94] [95] White people in the country had half the chance of dying of the virus when compared with black Britons, while British Chinese showed similar fatality rates to white people. White males were at just under half the risk of men of British Bangladeshi and British Pakistanis ancestry. [96] A British government report confirms that Black and Asian people in Britain had higher death rates amid the COVID-19 pandemic than their white counterparts. [97] [98] Despite the effects of COVID-19, whites in England and Wales have a higher overall mortality rate than any other ethnicity. [99] [100] [101] Whites in England and Wales have a lower life expectancy at birth than nearly all other ethnic groups. [102] [91]
A 2009 study published in Ethnicity & Health demonstrated that the White Irish people self-reported higher rates of poor general health than the White British populace. This was found to be particularly the case in Northern Ireland, for those who had designated themselves as White, and with an "Irish" national identity. [103] In 2020, a UCL study based in NHS England data, showed that the White Irish group was around 50 per cent less at risk of death from COVID-19 than other black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups. This was significantly lower than the White British group, which were 12 per cent lower than the average risk for BAME communities. [104]
The population of the United Kingdom was estimated at 67,596,281 in 2022. It is the 21st most populated country in the world and has a population density of 279 people per square kilometre, with England having significantly greater density than Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Almost a third of the population lives in south east England, which is predominantly urban and suburban, with 8,866,180 people in the capital city, London, whose population density was 5,640 inhabitants per square kilometre (14,600/sq mi) in 2022.
Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their race, ancestry, ethnic or national origin, and/or skin color and hair texture. Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain group. Governments can discriminate explicitly in law, for example through policies of racial segregation, disparate enforcement of laws, or disproportionate allocation of resources. Some jurisdictions have anti-discrimination laws which prohibit the government or individuals from being discriminated based on race in various circumstances. Some institutions and laws use affirmative action to attempt to overcome or compensate for the effects of racial discrimination. In some cases, this is simply enhanced recruitment of members of underrepresented groups; in other cases, there are firm racial quotas. Opponents of strong remedies like quotas characterize them as reverse discrimination, where members of a dominant or majority group are discriminated against.
British Chinese, also known as Chinese British or Chinese Britons, are people of Chinese – particularly Han Chinese – ancestry who reside in the United Kingdom, constituting the second-largest group of Overseas Chinese in Western Europe after France.
The United Kingdom is an ethnically diverse society. The largest ethnic group in the United Kingdom is White British, followed by Asian British. Ethnicity in the United Kingdom is formally recorded at the national level through a census. The 2011 United Kingdom census recorded a reduced share of White British people in the United Kingdom from the previous 2001 United Kingdom census. Factors that are contributing to the growth of minority populations are varied in nature, including differing birth rates and Immigration.
Black British people are a multi-ethnic group of British people of Sub-Saharan African or Afro-Caribbean descent. The term Black British developed in the 1950s, referring to the Black British West Indian people from the former Caribbean British colonies in the West Indies, sometimes referred to as the Windrush Generation, and Black British people descending from Africa.
A number of different systems of classification of ethnicity in the United Kingdom exist. These schemata have been the subject of debate, including about the nature of ethnicity, how or whether it can be categorised, and the relationship between ethnicity, race, and nationality.
White Irish is an ethnicity classification used in the census in the United Kingdom for England, Scotland and Wales. In the 2021 census, the White Irish population was 564,342 or 0.9% of Great Britain's total population. This was a slight fall from the 2011 census which recorded 585,177 or 1% of the total population.
The relationship between race and crime in the United Kingdom is the subject of academic studies, government surveys, media coverage, and public concern. Under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, section 95, the government collects annual statistics based on race and crime.
Research shows many health disparities among different racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Different outcomes in mental and physical health exist between all U.S. Census-recognized racial groups, but these differences stem from different historical and current factors, including genetics, socioeconomic factors, and racism. Research has demonstrated that numerous health care professionals show implicit bias in the way that they treat patients. Certain diseases have a higher prevalence among specific racial groups, and life expectancy also varies across groups.
In the United States, despite the efforts of equality proponents, income inequality persists among races and ethnicities. Asian Americans have the highest median income, followed by White Americans, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans. A variety of explanations for these differences have been proposed—such as differing access to education, two parent home family structure, high school dropout rates and experience of discrimination and deep-seated and systemic anti-Black racism—and the topic is highly controversial.
In the United States, racial inequality refers to the social inequality and advantages and disparities that affect different races. These can also be seen as a result of historic oppression, inequality of inheritance, or racism and prejudice, especially against minority groups.
Second-generation immigrants in the United States are individuals born and raised in the United States who have at least one foreign-born parent. Although the term is an oxymoron which is often used ambiguously, this definition is cited by major research centers including the United States Census Bureau and the Pew Research Center.
Societal racism is a type of racism based on a set of institutional, historical, cultural and interpersonal practices within a society that places one or more social or ethnic groups in a better position to succeed and disadvantages other groups so that disparities develop between the groups. Societal racism has also been called structural racism, because, according to Carl E. James, society is structured in a way that excludes substantial numbers of people from minority backgrounds from taking part in social institutions. Societal racism is sometimes referred to as systemic racism as well. Societal racism is a form of societal discrimination.
Racism in the United Kingdom has a long history and includes structural discrimination and hostile attitudes against various ethnic minorities. The extent and the targets have varied over time. It has resulted in cases of discrimination, riots and racially motivated murders.
The Lammy Review is a 2017 review on discrimination within the policing and criminal justice systems in the UK, led by David Lammy and commissioned by David Cameron and Theresa May. The Lammy Review found significant racial bias in the UK justice system.
White Polish is an ethnicity classification used in Scotland at the 2011 United Kingdom Census. In the 2021 census, the White Polish ethnic group totalled 705,080 in Great Britain, 90,736 of which were in Scotland making up 1.67% of the total population of Scotland at the time.
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed race-based health care disparities in many countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Canada, and Singapore. These disparities are believed to originate from structural racism in these countries which pre-dates the pandemic; a commentary in The BMJ noted that "ethnoracialised differences in health outcomes have become the new normal across the world" as a result of ethnic and racial disparities in COVID-19 healthcare, determined by social factors. Data from the United States and elsewhere shows that minorities, especially black people, have been infected and killed at a disproportionate rate to white people.
White demographic decline is a decrease in the White populace numerically and or as a percentage of the total population in a city, state, subregion, or nation. It has been recorded in a number of countries and smaller jurisdictions. For example, according to national censuses, White Americans, White Canadians, White Latin Americans, and White Britons are in demographic decline in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the United Kingdom, respectively. White demographic decline can also be observed in other countries including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Zimbabwe.
Mixed White and Black African people in the United Kingdom are a multi-ethnic and biracial group of UK-residents who identify with, or are perceived to have, both White and Black African ancestry.
"Global majority" is a collective term for people of Indigenous, African, Asian, or Latin American descent, who constitute approximately 85 percent of the global population. It has been used as an alternative to terms which are seen as racialized like "ethnic minority" and "person of color" (POC), or more regional terms like "visible minority" in Canada and "Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic" (BAME) in the United Kingdom. It roughly corresponds to people whose heritage can be traced back to nations of the Global South.
Research by the Trades Union Congress and Resolution Foundation has found that black men and women are more likely to be in precarious employment than white people, including agency and seasonal work. Furthermore, people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds are twice as likely to be unemployed than white people in the UK (as the chart below shows).
In 2017/18, the biggest difference in stop-and-search rates between black and white people was in Dorset ... Source: Home Office (2018c) ... in their analysis of policing in Manchester, Williams and Clarke (2016) found that white people overwhelmingly committed the largest proportion of police-defined incidents of serious youth violence (76% of the sample) ... Recent research that aims to fill this gap shows that while ethnic minority voters were less likely than white people to vote to leave the EU, the vote differed according to ethnicity
Research on ethnicity and employment trends in 2013 found white people had a higher employment rate than those from ethnic minorities. People from ethnic minorities were more likely to live in poverty than white people in 2012/13.
The Citizenship Survey report has a tone quite different from the Commission for Racial Equality speech (although both were publicy fundeded) ... An academic analysis of the same data finds similar results - that over half of the White population have friends exclusively among the White population ... How worrying is the much higher figure of 56% for the White population? Perhaps neither figure is surprising given the demographics and geographies of Britain's ethnic group populations.
This paper investigates majority group members' perceptions of racial discrimination by local housing authorities in England, examining survey data from the 2008-09 Citizenship Survey ... general beliefs about the persistence of racial prejudice in Britain affect whites' feelings of group disadvantage in the allocation of public housing.
To test these hypotheses, we draw upon the Ethnic Minority British Election Study 2010 (EMBES) ... Non-White people don't have the same opportunities and chances in life as White people, as they are held back by prejudice and discrimination (agrees or strongly agrees); 39.9%; 466 of 1,140
Drilling down on that finding, nearly half (44%) of White people said there was about the right amount of representation of Black people in film and television. Only one in six (17%) Black people agreed.
The NSEM, which covers England and Wales, was undertaken by the Policy Studies Institute in 1994. ... Of those successfully contacted, 79 percent of minority households and 71 percent of households headed by British whites participated in the NSEM (Smith and Prior, 1996). ... our multivariate analysis compares the gap between minority and whites in Canada with the gap between minority and whites in Britain
As figure 1 shows, non-white immigrants have, on average, a dramatically lower employment rate than British-born white individuals. Foreign-born whites are very similar to the British-born whites. ... Our research also shows that labour market outcomes of non-white immigrants are more volatile over the economic cycle than for white immigrants and British-born whites.
Today there are still twice as many people from ethnic minorities living in low income households than White people in Britain, although we need to stress again that there is significant variation within the White population as well.
White people in the UK are more likely to have atrial fibrillation (a type of irregular heart beat), smoke and drink alcohol than other ethnicities.
This analysis show that Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups are persistently disadvantaged in the labour market. Overall, the employment rates for White people (76.1 percent) is significantly higher than for those from a minority ethnic group (64.2 percent).
Whites in Britain are not only less ethnic than non-whites, their 'ethnicity' is never discussed, it is never put into focus (Dyer, 1988).
Through the use of fieldnotes and interview extracts, I discuss how I became aware that my ethnic identity was not always recognized by participants, and in some cases the distinction between white Irish and white British was denied.
Here we find that Black Caribbean, Indian and Pakistani/Bangladeshi men and women were significantly less likely to have tertiary education than Whites in Britain in 1991 but Black Caribbean women, Indian men and women became more qualified than Whites in 2001.
While whites in Britain dislike the half-caste more than the full-blooded Negro, whites in the West Indies favour the half-caste against the blacks. These, however, are matters of social prestige.
He claimed the nation was being overrun by foreigners who made white citizens feel like "strangers in their own country." Whites, he argued, were becoming a "persecuted minority" because of laws that favored nonwhites.
Non‐white full‐time employees were offered, and undertook, less training than whites in Britain in 1993–4, according to data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey. ... These findings suggest that equal opportunities legislation has been unsuccessful in eliminating unequal access to employer‐funded training in Britain.
Patterns of family life have become increasingly diverse over the past thirty years among white people in Britain and other North European countries. Family relationships are said to be moving away from "old fashioned values" towards "modern individualism". Different minorities are strongly represented at both ends of the spectrum.
243 adult patients who were attending general practitioners at a health centre in Bradford, England. Of these 103 were white, 83 were of Pakistani origin and 57 were of Indian origin ... Smoking and drinking are less frequent amongst 'Asians' than whites in Britain and the obvious reasons are the religious and cultural taboos.
Some critics of microaggression research, including psychologists, have also said that majority (e.g. white people in Britain) individuals would not respond to the same events so severely.
Any other arrangement, such as racial equality or control by people of colour, would threaten the 'white comfort zone' and therefore be unacceptable to most whites. The intensity to which most whites in Britain and the USA hold these views varies from very intense to passive (Figure 11.1).
Do you think most white people in Britain would mind or not mind if a suitably qualified person of Asian* origin were appointed as their boss? (If mind) A lot or a little?
It comments on neither the inadequacy nor the use of the term 'whites'.
The results indicate that, with or without controls and irrespective of ethnicity, blacks in Britain are significantly more likely to have a native born white partner than their US counterparts.
Overall, the proportion of white people in Britain has fallen from 91% in 2001 to 86% in 2011. The fall has taken place despite an influx of white immigrants from Poland.
Indians also have similar or higher earnings relative to white people in the United Kingdom, while earnings can be much lower for people who have Pakistani or Bangladeshi backgrounds (Longhi and Brynin, 2017)
Only 2% of white people in the United Kingdom live in crowded conditions, but 30% of Bangladeshi, 16% of Pakistani and 15% of black African households are overcrowded.
Black people are stopped by police at 6 times the rate of White people in the United Kingdom and Asians at almost twice the rate of Whites
Many white people in the UK feel that social landlords actively discriminate against them in favour of immigrants and ethnic minorities. Research by Alan Manning and colleagues finds no basis in reality for this perceived discrimination – but the recent history of social housing gives an indication of why that view has become so entrenched.
We have investigated the incidence of breast cancer amongst Asian and black immigrants in comparison with whites in Britain ... Caucasians were taken from those born in the United Kingdom or Eire. ... The incidence of breast cancer among Asian and black immigrants is low compared to that of the Caucasians and is similar to the rates in their countries of origin.
Mortality from stroke, however, is higher among black people than white people in the United Kingdom and the United States.
The gene, called FTO, was found by studying the genome of 39,000 white people in the United Kingdom, Finland and Italy who gave blood samples, the team said in Thursday's online issue of the journal Science.
Half of white Europeans carry one copy of the variant and one in six has two copies, experts estimate.
The coronavirus doesn't care about heritage, yet BAME people are losing their lives at a higher rate than white people in Britain. GQ looks at the links between racial inequality and public health.
Data from the coronavirus pandemic has shown that death rates have been significantly higher for Black people and ethnic minorities than for white people in Britain.
The study showed that black people were 1.9 times more likely to die with the coronavirus than whites in Britain, while Bangladeshi and Pakistani men were 1.8 times more likely to die than white males. The Office for National Statistics said ethnic Chinese and those of mixed ethnicity have risks for virus-related deaths similar to white people.
Results: When compared to the white British reference population, the self-reported 'white Irish' population overall, the Irish born in Northern Ireland, and UK-born Irish, show a significantly increased risk of both self-reported poor general health and limiting long-term illness.