Languages spoken in Aberdeen City Briefing paper 2016/02 RESEARCH AND INFORMATION Research and Information Briefing Paper 2016/02 (Published April 2016) Languages spoken in Aberdeen City This is one in a series of briefing papers that has been produced by the Research and Information team. It is intended that these papers will be used by Council services and, where appropriate, our Community Planning partners to assist policy development and wider service delivery. Some papers, including this one, may be of interest to a wider audience. This paper looks at Languages spoken in Aberdeen City (including some information on Aberdeenshire for comparison). Available information on languages comes primarily from the Census which provides data on how well English is spoken by Aberdeen City’s population as well as what languages are used at home. The Census also provides additional information about the level of Gaelic language skills within Aberdeen City. Further information about languages used in Aberdeen City was provided by Aberdeen City Council translation services (InterTrans) and also by the Pupils Census. For more information on these issues, please contact: Research and Information Team Office of Chief Executive Aberdeen City Council 1st Floor, Old Town House Broad Street Aberdeen AB10 1FY 01224 523322 [email protected] Other briefing papers in this series have included the following topics: Population Report, Aberdeen City and Shire Population of Older People in Aberdeen Migrant Workers in Aberdeen City and Shire These papers, and other statistical reports, can be found in the ‘Stats and Facts’ section of the Aberdeen City Council website: www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/statsandfacts We value your comments/feedback and would appreciate if you could provide your comments on this paper by clicking the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/research-feedback-form 1 Summary English is the main language spoken in Aberdeen City. At the time of the 2011 Census, 98% of Aberdeen City’s population reported speaking English well or very well. 36% of Aberdeen City’s population said they were able to speak Scots. Just under 2% of Aberdeen City’s population reported speaking Scots at home. Less than 1% of Aberdeen city’s population said they were able to speak Gaelic. The ability to speak Gaelic was most common in adults aged between 18 years and 50 years, and those with higher levels of educational qualifications. While most people in Aberdeen City could speak English, over 12% said they used a language other than English or Scots at home. Following English, the most common language used at home was Polish with 3% of the population speaking Polish at home. Polish speakers were most common in the younger adult age groups (25 to 34 year age group). The 2011 Census recorded a total of 68 languages used in Aberdeen. The most common languages (other than English, Polish or other UK languages) were French, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, German and Arabic. Over 9% of the City’s population used an ‘other’ language at home. As with Polish, the highest numbers of people who used an ‘other’ language at home were in the younger adult age groups (20 to 39 years). Users of languages other than English were unevenly distributed throughout the City. Proportions of people who spoke English only at home (based on intermediate zones) ranged from a high of 93.4% in Danestone to a low of 68.5% in Tillydrone. In 2014/2015, a total of 3,291 requests were received by InterTrans (a service that provides translation, interpreting and communication support to users and providers of Aberdeen City Council’s services). This is an increase of almost 90% from 2011/2012 levels. The most common languages requested were Polish, Russian and Lithuanian. In 2015, 18% of pupils in publicly funded schools in Aberdeen City reported that English was not their main home language. The most common languages spoken at home (other than English) were Polish (7%), Malayalam (1%) and Arabic (1%). There were considerable differences between schools - at primary school level, the proportion of children who reported having English as their main language at home ranged from a high of almost 98% at Culter School to a low of 25% in St Peter’s RC School. At secondary school level, the proportion of pupils who reported English as their main home language ranged from a high of 96% at Cults Academy to a low of 72% at Torry Academy. There has been a sharp rise in the number of school children whose main home language is not English. Since 2010 the numbers have increased by almost 60% from 2,422 in 2010 to 3,478 in 2015. 2 Languages Spoken in Aberdeen City 1. Background Information Possibly the most comprehensive source of information relating to languages spoken in Aberdeen City comes from Census data. At the time of the 2011 Census, Aberdeen City had a total population of 222,793. The population in Aberdeenshire was 252,973. Scotland’s population was 5,295,403. A number of factors are likely to influence what languages are spoken in a particular area, including the ethnic composition of the population, or an individual’s country of birth and length of residence in the UK. To provide context for the language profile, this section therefore gives a brief overview of these factors. This information is taken from the Area Profiles provided by the 2011 Census (and is therefore consistent with the time period that the language data is available). 1.1. Ethnicity At the time of the 2011 Census, 11.9% of households in Aberdeen City were composed of people who were not all in the same ethnic group category. This is slightly higher than the figure for Scotland as a whole (10.6%), but lower than the figure for Aberdeenshire which was 13.0% (see Figure 1.1). Figure 1.1: Percentage of households where not all persons are in the same ethnic group category, Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Scotland, 2011 Census Aberdeen City Aberdeenshire Scotland 14 12 10 8 6 Percentage % 4 2 0 Percentage of households where not all persons are in same ethnic group category Source: Scotland’s Census 2011, Available at: http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ods-web/area.html While Aberdeenshire had a higher proportion of households with mixed ethnicity, the ethnic composition of the population was less varied than in Aberdeen City. In Aberdeenshire, 82.2% of the population classified their ethnicity as ‘White – Scottish’, compared to 75.3% of Aberdeen City’s population. In Scotland the figure was 84.0%. Aberdeenshire also had a much higher proportion of people who classified their ethnicity as ‘White – other British’ at 12.3%, compared to 7.6% in Aberdeen City and 7.9% in Scotland as a whole. The total proportion of the population who were either ‘White – Scottish’ or ‘White – other British’ was 94.5% for Aberdeenshire, 91.9% for Scotland and 82.9% for Aberdeen City (see Figure 1.2). 3 Figure 1.2: Proportion of population who classified their ethnicity as ‘White – Scottish’ or ‘White – other British’, Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Scotland, 2011 Census Aberdeen City Aberdeenshire Scotland 96 94 92 90 88 86 84 Percentage % 82 80 78 76 % White - Scottish or other British Source: Scotland’s Census 2011, Available at: http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ods-web/area.html The lower proportion of ‘White – Scottish’ and ‘White – Other British’ ethnic group categories in Aberdeen City compared to Aberdeenshire and Scotland as a whole, translates to a higher proportion of the population in the City being represented in other ethnic group categories. Almost 5% of Aberdeen City’s population classified themselves as ‘White – Other’, 4.3% as Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British and 3.2 % as ‘White – Polish’. Figure 1.3 presents percentages of the population in different ethnic group categories for Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Scotland. Figure 1.3: Percentage of population in specific ethnic group categories, Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Scotland, 2011 Census Aberdeen City Aberdeenshire Scotland 6 5 4 3 2 Percentage % 1 0 % White - Irish % White - Polish % White - Other % Asian, Asian % Other ethnic Scottish or Asian groups British Source: Scotland’s Census 2011, Available at: http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ods-web/area.html 4 1.2. Country of birth Scotland’s Census also collects information on ‘country of birth’. At the time of the 2011 Census, 75% of Aberdeen City’s population reported Scotland as their country of birth. This figure was lower than that of either Aberdeenshire (80.5%) or Scotland (83.3%) – see Figure 1.4. Figure 1.4: Percentage of the population who have Scotland as their country of birth, Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Scotland, 2011 Census Aberdeen City Aberdeenshire Scotland 84 82 80 78 76 Percentage % 74 72 70 Scotland Source: Scotland’s Census 2011, Available at: http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ods-web/area.html Figure 1.5 below shows percentages of the population by country of birth (excluding Scotland) for Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Scotland. As can be seen from the figure, the percentage of the population born in England was higher in Aberdeenshire (12.1%) than in either Aberdeen City (8.1%) or Scotland (8.7%). However, Aberdeen City had a much higher percentage of people born in Other EU countries (6.4%) and Other countries (8.9%) than both Aberdeenshire and Scotland. For all three areas, the percentage of the population born in Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland was less than 1%. Figure 1.5: Percentage of population by country of birth (excluding Scotland), Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and Scotland Aberdeen City Aberdeenshire Scotland 14 12 10 8 6 4 Percentage % 2 0 % England % Wales % Northern % Republic of % Other EU % Other Ireland Ireland countries (inc countries UK part not specified) Source: Scotland’s Census 2011, Available at: http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ods-web/area.html 5 1.3.