Changes in the Ethnic Make of Local Areas Since the 2011
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Author: Richard Webber Changes in the ethnic make of local areas since the 2011 census: a new resource for planning the delivery of local services Key messages • There has been a huge increase in public debate of migration and its impact during the last few years, both in politics and the media. • Though statistics provide evidence of aggregate changes in the size of different population groups in Britain, most local authorities and retailers are dependent on the 2011 census for information on the size of minority population a local level • Data are often out of date in the very areas where the issue is most sensitive and where accurate information is most needed. • What matters for the efficient planning of many local services is information on residents’ cultural backgrounds. This is only indirectly aligned with country of birth, nationality or immigration status. • It is now possible for the first time to track changes in the size and movement of communities at a neighbourhood level. 1 Context At Webber Phillips we specialise in providing evidence on the behaviours of different population groups. This is because we believe that policies that improve the life experiences of each group needs to take into account their behaviour, and that the behaviours of one community are often very different from those of another. Whilst it is appropriate to target some policies at individual members of a population group, there are many other services which are delivered on a local basis. To meet the needs of local citizens people who plan how these services should be delivered do need to understand the make up of local communities and, perhaps more important, how this is changing in real time. Whilst there are some neighbourhoods of our larger cities which are renowned for their overall level of diversity, the particular parts of cities which, for one reason or another, communities are currently moving to is much less clearly known. Turks settle in different areas from Jews, Nigerians from Sikhs. As these communities expand and as their members become more economically successful, the neighbourhoods where they settle can change quite quickly. Canvey Island, for example, has suddenly become a destination of choice for orthodox Jews who previously lived in Stamford Hill. How are such changes to be recorded other than by anecdote? Canvey Island: the new destination for Orthodox Jews? Inferring cultural background Much has been written about alternative methods of classifying people according to their background. In different circumstances it has made sense to classify people by country of birth, by the country of their parent’s birth, by nationality, by religion and by language. Names have many advantages over these other methods, not least since names are already held on many databases. The collection of information on cultural background using names is inexpensive, non-intrusive, provides a response rate of well over 99% and can be used to identify much finer categories – such as the difference between Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese – than would be possible using self-completion questionnaires or the census. Another key benefit of using names is that information can be updated on a continuing or regular basis. What names indicate does not precisely match up with other established classifications. There are some communities, such as Sikhs, who will assign names which are particular to their religion. Finns tend to assign names on the basis of their language. Italians bear surnames which are often specific to Italy. A classification of people based on names will therefore result in a set of categories based on a mixture of religion, language and the place where forebears originated from, depending on whichever element is most frequently used by a culture when it attributes names. 2 Monitoring community change In 2016 Webber Phillips was able to access a file containing the names and postcodes of almost all British adults. By appending Origins codes to each individual record we have been able to generate statistics on the number and percentage of adults from different Origins categories right down to individual postcode level (e.g. PL19 9DL). By appending an identical classification to a near universal file of names from the time of the 2011 census (although of course from a different source) we have been able to measure changes in the population mix of local areas during the five years since it was taken. Figure one: Postal Area IG, Ilford To test the effectiveness of the method and to illustrate its potential value to retailers and planners of local services we have undertaken a pilot in the postal area IG, Ilford (figure one). We chose this area because in recent years it has experienced very rapid demographic change as newly arrived populations displace old established working-class communities. However in addition to the communities historically dependent on jobs in the London dock, postal area IG contains some traditionally high status suburban communities, such as Loughton and Buckhurst Hill, which, at least until the year of the 2011 census, had been as solidly white British as they had been middle class (see figure two). 3 Figure two: % IG adults whose names are English, 2016 Evidence Table one shows the proportion of IG adults in 2011 and 2016 whose names originate from different cultures. One of its more striking statistics is that over as short a period as five years the stock of people with English names declined by almost a fifth from two fifths to just under a third of the IG adult population. Besides people of Irish, Welsh and Scots descent, this part of London accommodates a number of Muslim, Sikh and Hindu communities. What is even more interesting is the rates of change over the five-year period. Table one shows that the area is clearly becoming increasingly attractive to Muslims in general and to Pakistanis in particular, more so than it is to Hindu Indians and Sikh whose large community by 2011 has not expanded much further. From a low base in 2011 the area has increased not just its Polish population but more particularly it has become a magnet for Lithuanians and Romanians. Such is the granularity of Origins that we can see the emergence in the part of East London of a number of new small Muslim communities, Albanians, Iranians and Moroccans. Other London communities have largely avoided moving to the area. There has been no significant increase in the Nigerian and Ghanaian communities. They have chosen to settle on the south bank of the Thames rather than on the north bank. Areas of Turkish and Cypriot settlement have grown along the Lea Valley in North London. West Indians have preferred to settle in South London or beyond its boundary. Historically there has been a strong Jewish community in North Ilford but this is in decline. 4 Percentages of adults by Origins IG 2011 IG 2016 change Total 219,514 284,732 ENGLAND 39.95 32.41 -7.54 PAKISTAN 5.89 7.14 1.25 INDIA: HINDI 5.49 5.72 0.23 MUSLIM (OTHER) 4.68 5.89 1.21 INDIA: SIKH 4.37 4.42 0.06 IRISH REPUBLIC 4.10 3.50 -0.60 SCOTLAND 3.64 3.09 -0.55 WALES 2.63 2.26 -0.37 SRI LANKA 2.44 2.87 0.43 NIGERIA 2.12 2.28 0.16 BANGLADESH MUSLIM 1.95 2.56 0.62 INDIA: PUNJABI 1.43 1.72 0.30 GERMANY 1.30 1.22 -0.08 TURKEY 1.09 1.20 0.11 ISRAELI AND JEWISH 1.05 0.82 -0.23 ITALY 1.05 1.15 0.10 GHANA 0.94 0.93 0.00 POLAND 0.87 1.18 0.30 PAKISTANI KASHMIR 0.79 1.05 0.26 FRANCE 0.73 0.77 0.04 LITHUANIA 0.64 1.10 0.45 GREEK CYPRUS 0.63 0.54 -0.09 IRAN 0.60 0.73 0.14 LEBANON 0.47 0.58 0.10 PORTUGAL 0.46 0.52 0.06 SPAIN 0.43 0.57 0.14 CHINESE CANTONESE 0.42 0.41 0.00 SOUTH ASIA (UNSPECIFIED) 0.40 0.46 0.06 MOROCCO 0.37 0.45 0.07 ROMANIA 0.37 1.21 0.83 HINDU NOT INDIAN 0.35 0.42 0.07 ALBANIA 0.35 0.41 0.06 NETHERLANDS 0.34 0.34 0.00 BLACK CARIBBEAN 0.33 0.31 -0.03 RUSSIA 0.31 0.52 0.20 Table one: change in ethnic composition of different communities in the IG postal area, 2011 - 2016 The Ilford postal area covers quite a diverse cross section of East London and it is evident from the comparison of names that these movements seldom apply uniformly across the area as a whole. 5 Table two shows the communities where within the area particular communities have grown or declined. Thus the two most suburban postcode districts, Buckhurst Hill and Loughton, have been much more effective in holding on to their white British population than districts closer to the Thames. The in- movement of non-white British people since 2011 has not been concentrated within any single community – movers appear to be wealthy members of any community. Pakistanis, other Muslims, Lithuanians and Romanians have Buckhurst Hill found Barking the easier part of the area to settle in. Evidence suggests that Hindu Indians, Sikh and Sri Lankans are moving out of Ilford to more desirable housing in Barkingside and Gants Hill, displacing what were traditionally strong Jews and Irish communities. Such is the granularity of Origins that we can see the emergence in the part of East London of a number of new small Muslim communities, Albanians, Iranians and Moroccans.