People have a number of identities including ethnicity, national identity, religion or belief and sexual identity. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) work to understand how best to measure these concepts, provide guidance to others, and carry out original analysis.
Publications
This report examines attitudes to immigration, values, identity and sense of belonging to Britain using findings from the Citizenship Survey.
The Bulletin provides summary information as well as some trend data from previous years. It includes information on - smoking, household composition, debt, internet access, health, sport and leisure, environmental issues, mobile phones and job applications.
Provides details of the ethnic groups in the UK today. It includes information on their characteristics, lifestyle and experiences, placing particular emphasis on comparing and contrasting the main groups.
Brings together statistics from the Census on the key demographic, geographic, household and labour market differences between the main ethnic and religious groups in Great Britain.
Offers an insight into the lives of men and women in contemporary UK society. It includes information on their characteristics, experiences and lifestyle, placing particular emphasis on the differences between men and women.
Offers an insight into the different faith groups in the UK today. It looks separately at Great Britain and Northern Ireland; comparing and contrasting the characteristics of the main faith groups, their lifestyles and experiences is presented.
Popular forenames in Scotland.
Draws a statistical picture of children in the UK. It looks at the characteristics of the UK's children and contains commentary, tables, and charts covering the following topics: social circumstances, education, health and lifestyle.
Draws a statistical picture of minority ethnic groups in the UK. It is the second in a new series of concise overviews of social issues.
Brings together statistics from a wide variety of sources to paint a picture of different groups of people in contemporary British society.
Provides an overview of the changing lives and roles of men in the UK. It provides information across a range of topics: men's family lives, their experience of education and work, their income and how they spend it, their health and lifestyles.
Brings together statistics from a wide variety of sources to paint a picture of different groups of people in contemporary society.
Brings together statistics from a wide variety of sources to paint a picture of different groups of people in contemporary society.
Brings together statistics from a wide variety of sources to paint a picture of different groups of people in contemporary society.
Overview
People identify with a number of different groups and communities, some of which are of particular social and legal significance including:
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ethnicity
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national identity
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religion or belief
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sexual identity
Key to understanding social and economic trends is the understanding of people's identities. Social and economic trends include monitoring inequalities as required by equality legislation.
Defining and measuring these identities can be difficult, as they are often based on personal opinion and feelings and can include several different aspects. For example, ethnicity can be based upon a combination of things such as physical appearance, language and religion. Accepted terms used to describe these identities may also change over time.
The UK is more ethnically diverse than ever before with 4.6 million people from a variety of ‘Mixed’, ‘Asian’, ‘Black’ and ‘Chinese and other’ backgrounds.
The different groups may share some socio-economic characteristics but often these differences will be greater between these groups than between the minority ethnic population as a whole and the White British population.
Technical Data
Current position
An ethnic group question was first included in the England and Wales census in 1991. The question was introduced to enable organisations to monitor equal opportunities and anti-discrimination policies and to allocate resources.
Experimental Population estimates by ethnic group and by age and sex are available for mid-2001 to mid-2006. These estimates are for England and Government Office Regions, counties and local authority districts (also known as constituent administrative areas).
Broad components of population change are also shown for England only. Estimates are also available for health geography; Primary Care Organisations and Strategic Heath Authorities.
Ethnic identification can mean different things to different people and can be based upon a number of categories such as country of birth, nationality, language spoken at home, skin colour, geographic origin, racial group religion or country of parent’s birth. Therefore, this sort of information can be particularly difficult to collect. Guidance on ethnicity data collection is available on the National Statistics website.
This guidance recommends that wherever possible a national identity question should be asked as a companion to the ethnic group question. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) first introduced a question on national identity in the 2001 Labour Force Survey (LFS).
The 2001 Census was the first time that a religious affiliation question had been asked in England, Scotland and Wales, although the Northern Ireland censuses have included a religion question since 1861.
ONS have developed harmonised questions on ethnic group, national identity and religion which are recommended for inclusion in National Statistics surveys.
The harmonised question on religion is split into two parts, the first focussing on religious affiliation and the second focussing on religious practice.
Future plans
A detailed consultation on user needs for ethnicity, national identity, language and religion information from the 2011 Census in England and Wales took place between December 2006 and March 2007.
These responses, along with those from other users and stakeholders, informed further question development. Question testing research with members of the public took place throughout 2007. ONS made recommendations in November 2008 on the questions for the 2009 Rehearsal and 2011 Census. These will need to be agreed by Parliament in early 2010.
ONS has acted on a recommendation from the 2007 ONS-led review of equality data by introducing a new survey question on sexual identity. This will help fulfil legal duties on equality.
The question aims to measure respondents’ self perceived sexual identity. The survey question has been designed for greater equalities monitoring of lesbian, gay and bisexual groups. It provides an acceptable measure of self-perceived sexual identity for examining relative disadvantage at a national and sub-national level.
From January 2009, the sexual identity question will be used to collect data on sexual identity in all major continuous surveys of ONS. The surveys are:
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Annual Population Survey
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Labour Force Survey
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English Housing Survey
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Living Costs and Food module (formerly Expenditure and Food Survey)
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General Lifestyle module (formerly General Household Survey)
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Opinions module (formerly Omnibus Survey)
The first data from these surveys will not be available until 2010 as the surveys involved are carried out over the period of a year.
Further details about this work can be found here on the Sexual Identity Project web pages.
In Spring 2009, the project will produce user guidance which will collect all the evidence from the previous stages of the project into one. The aim is to provide guidance to both users of statistics and those organisations collecting data on sexual orientation.
Glossary
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Ethnicity/ethnic group
There is no complete agreement on what constitutes an 'ethnic group' and terminology used to describe these groups has changed significantly over time. An ethnic group is a shared and subjective identity that can be based upon a combination of categories such as: country of birth, nationality/ citizenship, language spoken at home, parents' country of birth in conjunction with country of birth, skin colour, national origins/geographical origin, ethnic origins, racial group, and religion.
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Ethnic minority
Definitions of what constitutes an 'ethnic minority' are subject to much discussion. Where possible, the Office for National Statistics recommends that people refer to specific ethnic groups separately. If you do refer to different ethnic minorities as a single group, make sure that this will not be misleading. The terms ‘ethnic minority’ or ‘ethnic minority population(s)’ can be used to refer to ethnic groups other than White British (including White minority groups) or ethnic groups other than White.
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National identity
National identity can be taken to mean affiliation to a nation and as such is subjective and self-perceived. The concept of national identity should be treated as separate from both citizenship/nationality, which involves bureaucratic or legal statuses relating to a state, and ethnic group.
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Religion or belief
Religion or belief is defined in the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 as ‘any religion, religious belief, or similar philosophical belief’. This includes beliefs such as atheism and humanism. However it excludes ‘any philosophical or political belief unless that belief is similar to a religious belief’. Questions about religion tend to be about one of three different aspects – affiliation, practice and belief. (Please see above Glossary entries for affiliation, practice and belief).
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Religious affiliation
Affiliation is the identification with a religion irrespective of actual practice or belief. The census and most surveys ask about religious affiliation.
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Religious belief
Includes beliefs typically expected to be held by followers of a religion and how important those beliefs are to a person’s life.
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Religious practice
This defines specific religious activities that are expected of believers. In 2007/08 34 per cent of people with a religious affiliation considered themselves to be practising.
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Sexual identity
Sexual identity is a dimension of sexual orientation. It is based on a person’s self identification. This is based on their internal feelings and affiliation with a community, which influences, for example, political opinion, health behaviours, and the likelihood of experiencing discrimination. Sexual identity cannot be determined in terms of other dimensions of orientation such as attraction or behaviour. Not all men who have sex with men will identify themselves as gay. Similarly, people who have sex with both men and women might not identify themselves as bisexual. ONS is intending to measure identity, considering it the dimension of most relevance to the equality agenda.
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Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation as defined by the Equalities 2006 Act, refers to an individual’s sexual orientation towards – (a) persons of the same sex as him or her (b) persons of the opposite sex, or (c) both.
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Socio-economic
Socio-economic characteristics involve both social and economic variables such as education and occupation.
Contact Details
For statistical enquiries about this topic, please contact:
Equalities and Wellbeing
Email: equalities@ons.gsi.gov.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 1633 456562
Equalities and Wellbeing Office for National Statistics Cardiff Road Newport NP10 8XG
