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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Census shows large rise in UK ethnic population |
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| Barr |
| 02/14/03 at 23:37:33 |
| http://society.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,7838,894757,00.html [size=3]Census shows large rise in UK ethnic population [/size] Staff and agencies Thursday February 13, 2003 Two boroughs of Britain have more black and Asian people than white people for the first time ever, according to figures from the 2001 census published today. Data from the £200m survey showed that there were 4.5 million people from ethnic minorities in the UK in 2001 - 7.6% of the total population. The ethnic minority population of England rose from 6% in 1991 to 9% in 2001. Whites made up 39.4% of people living in the east London borough of Newham and 45.3% in Brent in the north-west of the capital. However, experts stressed that the figures on race were not directly comparable, partly because figures from Northern Ireland were not included in the 1991 data. Nearly 72% of people gave their religion as Christian (37 million) and the second largest faith was Islam with 1,547,000 followers or 3% of the population. There were 552,000 Hindus, 329,000 Sikhs, 260,000 Jews and 144,000 Buddhists, while 7.7 million said they had no religion. The number of Star Wars fans who gave their religion as "Jedi" - because of an internet campaign running at the time of the census - was 390,000, or 0.7% of the population. Fans of the science fiction saga had been encouraged to enter Jedi as their faith in the mistaken belief that if 10,000 did so, it would be recognised as an official religion. The registrar general for England and Wales, Len Cook, said: "We have put them among the 7.7 million people who said they had no religion. I suspect this was a decision which will not be challenged greatly. "Some 390,000 people reported that they were Jedi. I think it was not a particularly serious answer by someone who had a good idea but I think it encouraged people to fill in their census forms. That can only be a good thing. "I think there are other reasons why something should be classed as a religion, rather than a group of people getting together on the internet to arrange it." The question on religion was voluntary and just over four million people chose not to answer it. The survey by the office for national statistics (ONS) also showed a significant shift away from traditional married life. John Pullinger, of the ONS, said: "In previous censuses, when you knocked on a door you were likely to find a married couple behind it. In this census for the first time you don't. In 1981 64% of the population were married couples and in 1991 it was 55%. Now it is 45%." The number of divorced people rose from 26.3% in 1991 to 30.1%, while cohabiting couples made up one in 10 of the population - double the number a decade earlier. The proportion of lone parent families increased from 5.2% to 6% over 10 years. For the first time the census, which was conducted in April 2001, asked if householders were caring for an elderly sick relative or friend. Officials were surprised to discover that 5.2 million people were providing unpaid care, with one million of them giving more than 50 hours a week. The census showed 9.5 million people have long-term illness or disability, 18.2% of the population compared with 13.3% a decade ago. Of these, 4.3 million were of working age, or one in eight people. |
| 02/14/03 at 23:38:18 |
| Barr |
| Re: Census shows large rise in UK ethnic populatio |
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| xahira |
| 02/15/03 at 18:36:46 |
| [slm] in my area u wudnt think u were in england... leic is 1 of the places where the ethnic minorities 2gether outnumber the national majority... at the moment in my area thers alot of somali brothers n sisters n tajikistanis coming... n once my teacher goes that our city is the "curry-pot of the uk" coz of how many asians live here... its badly cosmopolitan n i guess thats y so many immigrants (like me wen i was moving here) chose to settle here. ...bout the growing movement towards atheism, i didnt realise that until i went to college, but i noticed theres only 2 types of brits in mine: 1.dnt believe in a God at all, or 2.die hard christians who just want to convert evry1 (whose parents r like missionaries or somthing) + thers not alot of them neway, since the church of england is losing ppl coz ppl r saying its such a farce coz it was created by that king henry 8 just so ppl cud get divorced, so if u dnt believ in a religious ceremony like marriage no1 gives shit if they get divorced n the statistics keep rising... p.s. thers a point in there somwhere n im sorry if i lost the plot... i do that somtimes :P |
| 02/15/03 at 18:37:32 |
| xahira |
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