I Don't Know...What The UK Census Really Shows
Data versus narrative
The latest data from the 2021 UK Census was released this week. A flood of headlines followed, highlighting that for the first time in memory, the UK was no longer a majority Christian country.
If you had only read the headlines of these stories, you would be forgiven for coming up with your own conclusions about the underlying shifts in the UK population. That certainly happened, and some were swift to take advantage. Nigel Farage quickly fed the headlines into his "invasion" narrative, and the vitriol spread rapidly on Twitter.
At best, the headlines lacked context and nuance. In a previous post (on Crypto), I argued that capturing these things in a headline takes skill and effort. Regardless, it is crucial to challenge convenient “weaponisation” when it comes to data.
The headlines were based on publicly available figures. The BBC led with "Less than half of England and Wales population Christian...", which is, evidently true.
Some of the headlines, however, were questionable. The Guardian said, "Christianity is now a minority religion in the UK". Whilst it is true that less than 50% of the nation now identifies as Christian, that figure is still 5x the size of any other religion. It is, therefore, debatable whether the headline is even factually correct. It is not debatable that it would have led to assumptions being made.
Debate aside, both headlines missed crucial context and, without it, proved straightforward to turn into soundbites to back up other, more direct views.
The critical context is that the decline in Christianity is largely down to the significant decrease in White Britons who now consider themselves Christian, rather than significant growth in other religions.
Less than 50% of White-Britons who responded to the 2021 Census categorised themselves as Christian, versus 69% in 2011. This fall of 6.6m people was enough to tip Christianity into a minority - if you are willing to define minority as less than 50% of the population, as the Guardian were.
The significant drop in those recognising as Christian coincided with an even more substantial rise in those who responded as having no religion. This figure grew by 8.5m.
That rise means that as of 2021, England and Wales are amongst the least religious countries in the world. What's more interesting is that the number of people reporting no religion is still likely to be overstated, given the nature of the question.
The question asked in the census is "what is your religion" which is unquestionably a leading question and is likely to inflate the number of people who will answer with a religion they follow loosely or historically. (The ONS themselves recognise this here: https://gss.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/religion).
So, what does this mean? The primary trend here is the overall decline in religious people, but that is not what made the headline in any of the mainstream outlets I saw.
The point here is not to solely criticise these headlines (that has been done with more skill than I could manage in the articles I’ve included below), nor is it to debate why the fall in religious people has occurred. Instead, it is to point out that when it comes to understanding data, we must include additional context if we want to establish the realities. Without that context, or deep understanding (which can be challenging to achieve), statistics can be easy to manipulate to push the day's narrative, whatever that is.
We need to hold our media - especially reputable and stand-up establishments such as the BBC and The Guardian to a higher account. The census data is important and gives a barometer of our country, but loose interpretation and subsequent advantage that is taken can be inflammatory and dangerous.
There are vast data in the census that, in my view, is more interesting and insightful into the make-up of England and Ireland than religious beliefs. Some of those include:
Exceptionally few Britons believe you need to be White to be considered British. Despite some of the narratives mentioned above, that number has fallen to around 1% versus approximately 10% in 2006.
The population is ageing, and the ageing is likely to accelerate. Where the population of the UK has increased by c3m versus 2011, there are 2.7m more people aged 55 and above. Those counted aged 0-4 were 260k fewer in 2021 versus 2011.
Population density is incredibly high in London versus the national average. England and Wales has, on average, a population density of 395 residents per km. In London, that figure is 5,598! That is over 10x the next most densely populated area, the North-West, with 526 per km.
There are around 2m more females in the UK than males. Over 51% of the nation is female, and all regions have more females than males! London is the most female-dominated area, with 51.5% of the London population.
Are these points more interesting? Perhaps. Are they more clickable? It appears not.
(1) https://www.ft.com/content/c466d158-0e40-44cd-9dff-c15d466f06f6
(2) https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/2021-census-great-replacement-theory-racist-data-media-white-christians-england-wales/
