The results of the census conducted in April 2021 have finally been published a year and a half later. The population is almost 70 million.
Perhaps the most talked about takeaway is that under 50% of people in the United Kingdom call themselves Christian. About 30% of people categorised themselves as atheist/agnostic or non-religious. The Muslim community is the second largest with 6% of people being members of the Islamic community. Hindus are 3% of the populace. Sikhs are over 1.5%. (Sikhs are only 2% of the people in India but 33% of the British Indian community.) There are more Buddhists than Jews in the UK!
People have turned away from religion in droves.
If you break the population down by religious denomination, then Jews are the richest per capita followed by Sikhs. Members of the Church of England are on average wealthier than other Christians. Hindus are as wealthy as most Christians. Muslims are the poorest.
The outcomes are notable in that almost 20% of the population is non-white. Bear in mind that this info is now 18 months out of date. The 20% figure has almost certainly been reached. Of babies born in the UK today about 40% are non-white. 6% of people in the United Kingdom are ethnic minority whites such as Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Italian people. But at what time does an ethnic minority white no longer classify herself as an ethnic minority? In the 1940s hundreds of thousands of Polish wartime refugees came to the UK. Today their great-grandchildren are being born. But these 1940 Poles usually married white Britons. Their children were half-Polish and the same happened again so their grandchildren were only a quarter Polish and so forth. But even if one is a Polak of full blood does one count as an ethnic minority in the UK if one is the
A third generation born in the realm? Probably not.
The number of non-whites is growing rapidly. That is through birth and immigration. Immigrants usually arrive in their 20s and 30s. They sometimes have a child in tow. Otherwise, they usually soon reproduce.
The fertility rate of the UK is 1.6. Among white Britishers, it is 1.4. Among ethnic minority women, it is higher. Among foreign-born women, it is 2.2 Ethnic minority women born in the UK have a fertility rate closer to that of white Britishers. Muslims have the highest fertility rate of any religion.
The UK will have a non-white majority this century. The majority of London schoolchildren are non-white. The countryside is very different.
The most common foreign country for a British resident to have been born in is India. No surprise there then! Fewer Irish people are shifting to GB.
In Northern Ireland 41% of people are Catholics and 39% are Protestants. 52% would vote to stay in the United Kingdom and 26% would vote to join the Republic of Ireland. People said a Catholic majority would mean a nationalist victory. But even after Brexit Catholics are far less convinced by nationalism than Protestants are by unionism.
In Northern Ireland, almost 20% of people say they have no religious identity. These people tend towards unionism.
UK life expectancy is now 80. If people eschew drugs, smoking, alcohol, and junk food and they take exercise then living to 90 is quite easy. But as the UK is a greying society its pensions system is unsustainable. There are two workers per pensioner. Soon it will be one worker per pensioner. The pensionable age is 67. There is talk of raising it to 70.
People must stay in education or training till the age of 18. 55% of people go to university. That is among the highest university attendance rate in the world. The United Kingdom has over 130 universities. Some of them will accept applicants who have failed all their school exams. Fees are GBP 10 000 per year. A degree takes 3 or 4 years. Some of the students end up GBP 40 000 in debt for a worthless degree. The government pays the fees up front and the student then has to repay the state over 25 years. The state estimates a third of this will never be repaid.
Perhaps the UK should stop sending armies of academically feeble people to university and stop burdening itself with debt. If most people entered the job market aged 16 they would be contributing to the economy and therefore the pensions system.
If working life were aged 16 to 70 that would be 54 years. At the moment it is in effect from 21 to 67: only 46 years. An extra 8 years would ease the pensions crisis.
Sunak's Conservative Party has usually fared poorly among ethnic minorities. This is changing but is changing as fast as the demographics? What London looks like now the whole UK will look like in a generation.
The UK has taken in 500 000 immigrants in the last year. But 170 000 are Ukrainian refugees and 10 000s are Hong Kong refugees. That is unusual. The UK is almost unique in counting foreign students as immigrants. But most students return home after studying. But if one removes the exceptional refugees the net immigration is still 300 000 per annum: almost as high as it was before the Brexit referendum. It has been proven that most immigrants are a net boon to the economy.
With inflation rampant people are less preoccupied with the perils of immigration.
The author is a political analyst from the UK, He can be watched on YouTube: George from Ireland