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In December 2004 Professor Anne Power and Dr. Ruth Lupton issued the report 'Minority Ethnic Groups in Britain' - a study conducted between 1991 and 2001. Richard Ford of the Times newspaper has summarised parts of Power and Lupton's work: "The ethnic minority population increase represented 73 per cent of the overall population growth. The white population grew by 600,000 and the ethnic minorities by 1.6 million. Overall the population in 2001 comprised 52.4 million whites and 4.6 million from ethnic minority groups. Ms. Power said that the reasons for the rapid increase in the ethnic minority population were low death rates because of age structure of the communities, high birth rates and record levels of immigration...The reports shows a 73 per cent rise in the size of the Bangladeshi community and a 57 per cent rise in the Pakistani community to reach 283,000 and 747,000 respectively...The overall proportion of minority ethnic groups increased from 5.5 per cent in 1991 to 8.1 per cent in 2001. |
A closer analysis of the British Muslim community - based on information from the 2001 statistics by the Office of National Statistics on religion - reveals that: "Muslims were the largest religious group after Christians (in the UK). There were 1.6 million living in Britain in 2001. This group comprised 3 per cent of the total population and over half (52 per cent) of the non-Christain religious population." "Muslim and Sikh men are least likely to be working in managerial or professional occupations (less than a third of these groups), and the most likely to be working in low skilled jobs." "Muslim households also contained the highest number of children. A quarter (25 per cent) of Muslim households contained three or more dependent children." |
Our society is passing through a period of change and we are concerned that without our realising it, we could lose some of the benefits of living in the relatively free and open society which we have inherited. The status and entitlement of all individuals is affected by the United Kingdom's membership of the European Communities and changing relationship with the Commonwealth. Since the war, Britain has been transformed into a multi-racial society. At the same time, shifts in the income, lifestyle, nature of work and demographic balance of the population are affecting people's expectations, traditional arrangements for working life, retirement and care in the community. Encouraging Citizenship - Report of the Commission on Citizenship. London: HMSO, 1988-1990, XV. |
A main aim for the whole community should be to find or restore a sense of common citizenship, including a national identity that is secure enough to find a place for the plurality of nations, cultures, ethnic identities and religions long found in the United Kingdom. Citizenship education creates common ground between different ethnic and religious identities...Minorities must learn to respect laws, codes and conventions as much as the majority - not merely because it is useful to do so, but because the process helps foster common citizenship. Crick Report (QCA, 1998) pp.17-18. |
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