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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 An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
, how or whether it can be categorised, and the relationship between
ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
,
race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
, and
nationality Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...
.


National statistics


History and debate

The 1991 UK census was the first to include a question on ethnicity. Field trials had started in 1975 to establish whether a question could be devised that was acceptable to the public and would provide information on race or ethnicity that would be more reliable than questions about an individual's parents' birthplaces. A number of different questions and answer classifications were suggested and tested, culminating in the April 1989 census test. The question used in the later 1991 census was similar to that tested in 1989, and took the same format on the census forms in England, Wales and Scotland. However, the question was not asked in Northern Ireland. The tick-boxes used in 1991 were "White", "Black-Caribbean", "Black-African", "Black-Other (please describe)", "Indian", "Pakistani", "Bangladeshi", "Chinese" and "Any other ethnic group (please describe)". Sociologist
Peter J. Aspinall Peter J. Aspinall is a social scientist whose research focuses on health services, the terminology and classification of ethnicity, and the relationship between ethnicity and health. He is Emeritus Reader in Population Health at the Centre for Hea ...
has categorised what he regards as a number of "persistent problems with salient collective terminology". These problems are ambiguity in respect of the populations that are described by different labels, the invisibility of white minority groups in official classifications, the acceptability of the terms used to those that they describe, and whether the collectivities have any substantive meaning. A number of academics have pointed out that the ethnicity classification employed in the census and other official statistics in the UK since 1991 involve confusion between the concepts of ethnicity and
race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
. David I. Kertzer and Dominique Arel argue that this is the case in many censuses, and that "the case of Britain is illuminative of the recurring failure to distinguish race from ethnicity". Aspinall notes that sustained academic attention has been focused on "how the censuses measure ethnicity, especially the use of dimensions that many claim have little to do with ethnicity, such as skin colour, race, and nationality". In 2007, Simpson and Bola Akinwale also studied the stability of individuals' responses to ethnic group questions between the 1991 and 2001 census. They concluded that the membership of the "White" category was stable, whereas 7–9 per cent of those in the "Asian" group and 23 per cent of both the "Caribbean" and the "African" group in 1991 had switched to another group by 2001. They suggested that conscious changes in affiliation explained little of this instability, whereas unreliability of the question was significant, partly due to the ambiguous nature of the categories used and partly due to imprecision in the imputation of missing values. It has also been argued that the wording of the ethnicity question in the 2001 census, "What is your ethnic group?", embodies "an essential ''being'' ethnic" as opposed to "a constructed ''belonging to'' an ethnicity". The latter would be reflected in a question such as "choose one box to best describe your ethnic group", which was subsequently added in the 2011 census. Sociologist Steven Vertovec argues that "much public discourse and service provision is still based on a limited set of Census categories", and that "these categories do not begin to convey the extent and modes of diversity existing within the population today". User consultation undertaken by the
Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; cy, Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible for th ...
(ONS) for the purpose of planning the 2011 census in England and Wales found that most of the respondents from all ethnic groups that took part in the testing felt comfortable with the use of the terms "Black" and "White". However, some participants suggested that these colour terms were confusing and unacceptable, did not adequately describe an individual's ethnic group, did not reflect his or her true skin colour, and were stereotypical and outdated terms. The heading "Black or Black British", which was used in 2001, was changed to "Black/African/Caribbean/Black British" for the 2011 census. As with earlier censuses, individuals who did not identify as "Black", "White" or "Asian" could instead write in their own ethnic group under "Other ethnic group". Persons with multiple ancestries could indicate their respective ethnic backgrounds under a "Mixed or multiple ethnic groups" tick box and write-in area. Between 2004 and 2008, the
General Register Office for Scotland The General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) ( gd, Oifis Choitcheann a' Chlàraidh na h-Alba) was a non-ministerial directorate of the Scottish Government that administered the registration of births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adopti ...
(GOS) conducted official consultation, research and question testing for the purpose of planning the 2011 Scottish census, with key evidence informing the new classification drawn from similar workshops carried out by the Office for National Statistics, the
Welsh Assembly Government Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
(WAG), and the
Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA, ga, Gníomhaireacht Thuaisceart Éireann um Staitisticí agus Taighde, links=no) is an executive agency within the Department of Finance (Northern Ireland), Department of Finance in No ...
(NISRA). The GOS found that "Black" was a polarising term for many focus group participants and interviewees. Some participants opposed the use of such terms, while others supported them. Opposition to the term "Black" was strongest among individuals originating from ethnic groups in Africa and the Caribbean, especially the former. The main reasons cited for this opposition were that racial terms like "Black" and "White" were invalid,
socially constructed Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...
concepts not based on empirical reality; that
skin colour Human skin color ranges from the darkest brown to the lightest hues. Differences in skin color among individuals is caused by variation in pigmentation, which is the result of genetics (inherited from one's biological parents and or individ ...
was distinct from ethnicity; that the "Black" and "White" categories from the earlier 2001 census were inconsistent with the "Asian" categories, thereby resulting in an unfair, double standard; and that the positioning of the "White" category atop the "non-White" categories implied a
racial hierarchy A racial hierarchy is a system of stratification that is based on the belief that some racial groups are superior to other racial groups. At various points of history, racial hierarchies have featured in societies, often being formally institut ...
, with "White" at the top. To redress this, the GOS established new, separate "African, African Scottish or African British" and "Caribbean, Caribbean Scottish or Caribbean British" tick boxes for individuals from Africa and the Caribbean, respectively, who did not identify as "Black, Black Scottish or Black British". It found that most testing participants thereafter chose to tick "African" or "Caribbean" instead of "Black". In the write-in area, they also noted their own respective ethnic groups, with few opting to write-in "Black". Additionally, individuals who did not identify as "Black", "White" or "Asian" could write in their own ethnic group under "Other ethnic group". Persons with multiple ancestries could indicate their respective ethnic backgrounds under a "Mixed or multiple ethnic groups" write-in area. There were calls for the 2011 national census in England and Wales to include extra tick boxes so people could identify their ethnic group in category A as
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
,
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
and Cornish. The tick boxes at the time only included "British", Irish or any other. Some experts, community and special interest group respondents also pointed out that the 'Black African' category was too broad. They remarked that the category did not provide enough information on the considerable diversity that existed within the various populations currently classified under this heading. This concealed heterogeneity ultimately made the gathered data of limited use analytically. To remedy this, the
Muslim Council of Britain The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is a national umbrella body with over 500 mosques and educational and charitable associations affiliated to it. It includes national, regional, local, and specialist Muslim organisations and institutions from ...
proposed that this census category should be broken down instead into specific ethnic groups. The
National Association of British Arabs National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...
(NABA) and other
Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
organisations also lobbied for the inclusion of a separate "Arab" entry, which would include under-reported groups from the
Arab world The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
such as
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
ns,
Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
is,
Somalis The Somalis ( so, Soomaalida 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒆𐒖, ar, صوماليون) are an ethnic group native to the Horn of Africa who share a common ancestry, culture and history. The Lowland East Cushitic Somali language is the shared ...
and
Maghrebis Maghrebis or Maghrebians ( ar, المغاربيون) is a modern Arabic term meaning "Westerners", mainly referring to the western part of the Arab world and North Africa. Maghrebis are predominantly of Arab and Berber or mixed Arab-Berber ori ...
. NABA reasoned that "lack of recognition of Arabs as a separate ethnic group, and hence their exclusion, has serious consequences for the planning of services and monitoring of such problems as racial discrimination". The specimen 2011 Census questions were published in 2009 and included new "Gypsy or Irish Traveller" and "Arab" categories. The final version of the census form included tick-boxes for "Gypsy or Irish Traveller" under the "White" heading, and "Arab" under the "Other ethnic group" heading. However, in the ONS's testing in England and Wales prior to the census, no Kurdish, Iranian, Berber, Somali or Egyptian participants chose to identify as Arab. Discussing the inclusion of nationalities such as "British" and "Irish" in the ethnic group categories of the census, Nissa Finney and Ludi Simpson argue that "on purely technical grounds, this is a mistake, confirmed by enumerators reporting that some Asian respondents had ticked 'British', having seen it as the first box and wishing to confirm their British identity and nationality". Samira Shackle, writing in the ''
New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
'', argues that "the fact that hundreds of thousands choose to describe their own ethnicity as Welsh, Scottish, or Cornish shows that 'ethnic British' is a nebulous concept".


Self-definition

The ethnicity data used in UK national statistics relies on individuals' self-definition. The
Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; cy, Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible for th ...
explain this as follows: This self-defined categorisation was also used for classifying ethnicity in the
2001 UK Census A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194. The 2001 UK census was organised by the Office for National ...
. Slightly different categories were employed in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
and
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, as compared with
England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...
, "to reflect local differences in the requirement for information". However, the data collected still allow for comparison across the UK. Different classifications were used in the 1991 Census, which was the first to include a question on ethnicity.


Ethnicity categories

The following are the options the ONS currently recommends for ethnicity surveys: In addition to the above "tick-box" options, respondents can also make use of the "please describe" options, also known as "write-in" answers. To do this, they would have to select one of the "any other" tick-boxes on the census form and write in their answer in the box provided.


Police

The police services of the UK began to classify arrests in racial groups in 1975, but later replaced the race code with an Identity Code (IC) system. One of the recommendations of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry was that people stopped and searched by the police should have their self-defined ethnic identity recorded. In March 2002, the
Association of Chief Police Officers The Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (ACPO) was a not-for-profit private limited company that for many years led the development of policing practices in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Established ...
proposed a new system for self-definition, based on the 2001 census. From 1 April 2003, police forces were required to use this new system. Police forces and civil and emergency services, the NHS and local authorities in England and Wales may refer to this as the "6+1" system, named after the 6 classifications of ethnicity plus one category for "not stated". The IC classification is still used for descriptions of suspects by police officers amongst themselves, but does risk incorrectly identifying a victim, a witness or a suspect compared to that person's own description of their ethnicity. When a person is stopped by a police officer exercising statutory powers and asked to provide information under the
Police and Criminal Evidence Act The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) (1984 c. 60) is an Act of Parliament which instituted a legislative framework for the powers of police officers in England and Wales to combat crime, and provided codes of practice for the exercise ...
, they are asked to select one of the five main categories representing broad ethnic groups and then a more specific cultural background from within this group. Officers must record the respondent's answer, not their own opinion. The "6+1" IC code system remains widely used, when the police are unable to stop a suspect and ask them to give their self-defined ethnicity.


Schools

The
Department for Education The Department for Education (DfE) is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for child protection, child services, education (compulsory, further and higher education), apprenticeships and wider skills in England. A Department ...
's annual school census collects data on pupils in nurseries,
primary Primary or primaries may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Primary (band), from Australia * Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea * Primary Music, Israeli record label Works * ...
, middle,
secondary Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding i ...
and
special school Special education (known as special-needs education, aided education, exceptional education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, or SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates th ...
s. This includes ethnicity data for pupils who are aged 5 or over at the beginning of the school year in August. The guidance notes on data collection note that ethnicity is a personal, subjective awareness, and that pupils and their parents can refuse to answer the ethnicity question. The codes used are based on the categories used in the 2001 UK census, with added "Travellers of Irish heritage", "Gypsy/Roma heritage" and "Sri Lankan Other" categories. If these codes are judged to not meet local needs,
local authorities Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
may use a Department for Education approved list of extended categories. The National Pupil Database attempts to match pupils' educational attainment to their characteristics gathered in the school census, including ethnicity. However, according to HM Inspectorate for Education and Training in Wales, the database contains data inaccuracies. A few of the local authorities and schools had also never accessed the repository, and some of these institutions were unaware of its existence. The NPD was also used least by the majority of local authorities and schools, with 65 percent deeming this method of educational data analysis to be of limited use, about 23 percent considering it to be fairly useful, and only around 11 percent regarding it as being very useful. Most schools and local authorities instead used the Welsh Assembly Government's national free school meal (FSM) benchmark data, which ranks a school's performance relative to other groups of schools with comparable free school meal levels. Around 55 percent of schools and local authorities deemed the benchmark data very useful, 35 percent considered it fairly useful, and only about 10 percent regarded it as being of limited use. Additionally, researchers conducting analysis for the
London Borough of Lambeth Lambeth () is a London boroughs, London borough in South London, England, which forms part of Inner London. Its name was recorded in 1062 as ''Lambehitha'' ("landing place for lambs") and in 1255 as ''Lambeth''. The geographical centre of London ...
have argued that broad ethnic groupings such as "black African" or "white other" can hide significant variation in educational performance, so they instead recommend the use of language categories.


Healthcare

The ethnic group categories used in the
National Health Service in England The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the ...
are based on the 2001 census. It has been argued that this causes problems, as other agencies such as
social services Social services are a range of public services intended to provide support and assistance towards particular groups, which commonly include the disadvantaged. They may be provided by individuals, private and independent organisations, or administe ...
use the newer 2011 census categories. In
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, the 2011 Scottish census categories are now used. In 2011, Scotland started to record ethnicity on
death certificate A death certificate is either a legal document issued by a medical practitioner which states when a person died, or a document issued by a government civil registration office, that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death, as ...
s, becoming the first country in the world to do so. Ethnicity data is not routinely recorded on
birth certificate A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a person. The term "birth certificate" can refer to either the original document certifying the circumstances of the birth or to a certified copy of or representation of the ensuin ...
s in any part of the UK. Whether the official UK ethnic group classifications are useful for research on health is the subject of debate. Peter Aspinall argues that the 2001 census categories fail to adequately break down the "white" group and ignore ethno-religious differences between South Asian groups, amongst other issues. Writing in the ''
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health The ''Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health'' is a peer-reviewed public health journal that covers all aspects of epidemiology and public health. It is published by the BMJ Group. History The journal was founded in 1947 by John Ryle, a ...
'', Charles Agyemang, Raj Bhopal and Marc Bruijnzeels argue that: "The current groupings of African descent populations in the USA and the UK such as Black, Black African, and African American hide the huge heterogeneity within these groups, which weakens the value of ethnic categorisation as a means of providing culturally appropriate health care, and in understanding the causes of ethnic differences in disease. Such broad terms may not fit with self definition of ethnicity".


Collective terms for minority ethnic groups

Since the Second World War, many minority groups in the UK were collectively referred to as "
coloured Coloureds ( af, Kleurlinge or , ) refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South ...
", a term which is deprecated and offensive in modern-day usage. From the 1970s until the early 1990s, those who subscribed to the notion of
political blackness The notion of "political blackness" arose in the United Kingdom as an umbrella term to refer to all people in the UK who were likely to experience discrimination based on skin colour; i.e., anyone who was not white. Following increased immigration ...
used the term "black" to refer to all ethnic minorities in the UK; however, this also came under scrutiny in the 1990s, especially from
British Asians British Asians (also referred to as Asian Britons) are British citizens of Asian descent. They constitute a significant and growing minority of the people living in the United Kingdom, with 6.9% of the population identifying as Asian/Asian Brit ...
who did not feel "black". A number of terms have been used, by government and more generally, to refer to the collective ethnic minority population. These include "black and minority ethnic" (BME), "black, Asian and minority ethnic" (BAME) and "black and ethnic minority" (BEM). These terms have been criticised on a number of grounds, including for excluding
national minorities The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...
such as the Cornish, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish from the definition of ethnic minorities, for suggesting that black people (and Asian people, specifically the
South Asians South Asian ethnic groups are an ethnolinguistic grouping of the diverse populations of South Asia, including the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. While Afghanistan is variously considered to b ...
with BAME) are racially separate from the ethnic minority population, and for including under a single label heterogenous groups with little in common with each other. A survey published in November 2020 found that the term "BAME" offended those whom it attempts to describe, with "ethnically diverse communities" preferred when speaking broadly, and relevant terms for a specific community or person. In December 2021, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 committed to not using the term "BAME", in order to provide better representation of specific ethnic groups. In November 2022, the
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
-run
Westminster City Council Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. The city is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors. The council is currently composed of 31 Labour Party members and 23 Cons ...
committed to replace BAME with "
global majority Global majority is a collective term for ethnic groups which 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) ...
." However,
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
MP John Hayes remarked that the change was "deeply sinister and must be resisted at every turn."


See also

*
Demographics of the United Kingdom The population of the United Kingdom was estimated at over 67.0 million in 2020. It is the 21st most populated country in the world and has a population density of 270 people per square kilometre (700 people per square mile), with England ...


Notes


External links


Ethnic group classification at ONS (PDF)

Measuring Equality: A guide for the collection and classification of ethnic group, national identity and religion data in the UK
Office for National Statistics, 2011 {{Ethnicity * Office for National Statistics Ethnicity in the United Kingdom, Classification