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2011 Census Briefing Note 1.2 : Ethnicity, National Identity, Country of Birth and Religion

The releases of 2011 Census data on 11 December 2012 and 30 January 2013 include a range of key

statistics for local authority districts and small areas within them. This briefing note covers the

information provided so far for Sheffield on ethnicity, national identity and country of birth.

Ethnic Group

The 2011 Census asked about the ethnicity of everyone in the population. The White British

population now represents 80.8% of the Sheffield total, down from 89.2% in 2001. The chart shows

the number of people in 2011 in each of the Census minority ethnic groups compared with 2001.

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The Pakistani community remains the largest minority ethnic group in the city, now representing 4%

of the total population in 2011, whilst the Other White group is still the second largest. The latter is

likely to have changed significantly in its constitution, with a greater proportion of Eastern European

immigrants since 2001.

The pattern below these two groups has changed. The Black African group is now the third largest,

having increased by two and a half times since 2001. This group includes the Somali community. The

Arab, Chinese, Indian and Other Asian groups have also doubled in the last ten years. A significant

element of this increase has been overseas students.

The Black Caribbean group, which was the third largest minority community in the city in 2001, has

barely increased at all in the last ten years, although the Mixed White and Black Caribbean group has

gone up by 49%. The population described as Other black has also increased substantially.

The White Irish group is the only one of the minority communities to have got smaller. The majority

White British group also reduced slightly over the last ten years.

Wards and Neighbourhoods

The ward with the highest proportion of Black or Minority Ethnic people is Burngreave at 62%. In

Darnall and Central wards almost half of the population is BME; in Walkley, Nether Edge and Firth

Park over a quarter. At the other end of the spectrum, less than 5 percent of the population are in

BME groups in Stocksbridge and Upper Don, East and West Ecclesfield and Birley wards.

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Almost a quarter of the population in Burngreave ward is of Pakistani origin. There are also large

Pakistani communities in Darnall and Nether Edge. Burngreave ward also has the largest Black

African and Arab communities. There are large numbers of Chinese, Indian and Arab people in

Central ward. Many of these are likely to be students. Walkley ward also has large Chinese and Arab

communities.

Within some Neighbourhoods of Burngreave and Darnall wards, around three-quarter of the

population are within BME communities.

National Identity

National identity is a relatively new concept for the UK Census. The question predominantly aims to

break down the White British ethnic group to identify the parts of the UK that residents identify with

the most.

National Identity Number %

English only 348,911 63.1%

Welsh only 1,592 0.3%

Scottish only 2,564 0.5%

Northern Irish only 693 0.1%

British only 97,709 17.7%

Cornish only 20 0.0%

Irish Only 1,636 0.3%

Other only 40,453 7.3%

Mixed identities 59,120 10.7%

Total 552,698 100%

Almost 18% saw identified themselves as British, with no further reference to the countries of the

British Isles. Only 7.3% did not identify themselves as any these British countries but as exclusively

‘Other’.

United Kingdom passports are held three-quarters of Sheffield’s population. A further 19 percent did

not hold a passport at all. This leaves 34,700 usual residents holding overseas passports. Almost half

of these hold passports for Middle Eastern or Asian countries. Most are likely to be overseas students

from China, India or the Middle East. More than 11,000 people hold passports for other EU countries.

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Country of Birth

As well as recording ethnicity, the 2011 Census asks about residents’ country of birth. More than 88

percent of Sheffield residents were born in the UK, most of them in England. Over 4,500 were born in

Scotland and 2,900 in Wales. 13,800 people were born in other parts of the EU, leaving around

50,700 born in other countries.

Of the other European born residents, a large number were from accession countries since April

2001, with the largest number from Poland. The African born residents came from all over the

continent, the largest number being around 2,400 from Somalia. Those born in the Middle East or

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Asia were also widely spread; 8,700 were born in Pakistan, 5,500 were born in China or Hong Kong

and around 4,000 in India. Over 7,000 were born in the Middle East. 2,200 were born in the

Caribbean.

Migration

The 2011 Census asks for the first time about migration to the UK. The questions cover three aspects

of migration:

Length of residence in the UK

Year of arrival in the UK

Age on arrival in the UK

There are 64,522 migrants living in Sheffield. Almost 40 percent of them have lived in the UK for ten

years or more; 19 percent have been here for less than two years.

The chart shows when Sheffield migrants first arrived in the UK. As the time periods are differing

lengths, the red bars show the numbers each year within the time period. Up until 1990, the

numbers remained relatively small, at around 400 or less each year. From that point inwards, the

number of migrants has increased fairly rapidly. There were more than 8,500 migrants in the last 15

months.

Around 30 percent of Sheffield migrants arrived in the UK as children. The most common ages for

migrants to arrive in the UK are between 16 and 29. A large proportion of these migrants will be

overseas students at the two universities, although some will be economic migrants from Europe.

Few people migrate to the UK aged 45 or over.

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Religion

A Census question on religion was asked for the first time in 2001. This is therefore the first time we

have been able to measure the change over the ten year period.

Christian Buddhist Hindu Jewish Muslim Sikh Other None

2001 351,839 1,134 1,686 783 23,769 754 1,199 91,895

2011 290,299 2,282 3,566 747 42,801 942 1961 172,516

The number of people who said they had no religion rose by 88% since 2001. They now make up

almost a third of Sheffield’s population. The number of Christians fell by almost 61,000. The number

of Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus almost doubled.

Further Information

A more detailed breakdown of ethnic groups will be available shortly. There is also a detailed

breakdown of religions for those who want it. Comparisons with other local authority districts are

also available.

Future releases will provide more information on these topics. Similar data to that provided in this

briefing note will be published for smaller geographies – wards, LSOAs, OAs – on 30 January. Further

breakdowns and cross-tabulations with other Census variables will not be published until the

summer of 2013.

All of this data covering the whole of England and Wales is available for downloading from the Office

for National Statistics (ONS) website at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/index.html

Knowledge & Research

January 2013