According to the 2021 Census, London was the most ethnically diverse region in England and Wales – 63.2% of residents identified with an ethnic minority group.

In 2011, 87.2 percent of the total population of the United Kingdom were white British. A positive net migration in recent years combined with the resultant international relationships following the wide-reaching former British Empire has contributed to an increasingly diverse population. Varied ethnic backgrounds Black British citizens, with African and/or African-Caribbean ancestry, are the largest ethnic minority population, at three percent of the total population. Indian Britons are one of the largest overseas communities of the Indian diaspora and make up 2.3 percent of the total UK population. Pakistani British citizens, who make up almost two percent of the UK population, have one of the highest levels of home ownership in Britain. Racism in the United Kingdom Though it has decreased in comparison to the previous century, the UK has seen an increase in racial prejudice during the first decade and a half of this century. Racism and discrimination continues to be part of daily life for Britain’s ethnic minorities, especially in terms of work, housing, and health issues. Moreover, the number of hate crimes motivated by race reported since 2012 has increased, and in 2017/18, there were 3,368 recorded offenses of racially or religiously aggravated assault with injury, almost a thousand more than in 2013/14.

This statistic shows the distribution of ethnic groups of Inner London, United Kingdom (UK) at the time of the 2011 National Census. 'White' is the largest group, at 57.2 percent of the population, followed by 'Black / African / Caribbean / Black British,' and Asian / Asian British.'

Between April 2022 and March 2023, there were 24.5 stop and searches for every 1,000 black people in England and Wales. There were 5.9 for every 1,000 white people.

Four focus groups of 15 individuals each were conducted in greater London and Birmingham in adjacent locales, one diverse, one more homogeneous. Locations were Croydon and Bromley in Greater London, and Lozells and Sutton Coldfield in Greater Birmingham. Participants were paid £30 apiece for their time and recruited by a Recruitment company.

Respondents were asked about perceptions of immigration and residential choice. We explored the 'halo' effect among those in whiter areas living in proximity to diversity, and the 'contact' effect of whites living with minorities in diverse areas. The former is theorised to increase threat perceptions of diversity, the latter to mitigate them.

Questions also explored ethnically motivated 'white flight' or whether social ties and amenities account for ethnic sorting. The link between immigration and issues of fairness, housing, services and employment was also broached.

Locations and dates:

3rd April, East Croydon United Reform Church, 6-7.30pm (diverse area) 8th April, Hayes Village Hall, Bromley, 6-7.30pm (White area)

9th April, Trinity Centre, Sutton Coldfield. 6-7.30pm (White area) 10th April, Lozells Methodist Community Centre, Birmingham, 6-7.30pm (diverse area)

This project advances the hypothesis that ethnic change in England and Wales is associated with white working-class ‘exit,’ ‘voice’, or ‘accommodation’. ‘Voice’ is manifested as a rise in ethnic nationalist voting and anti-immigration sentiment and ‘exit’ as outmigration from, or avoidance of, diverse locales. Once areas reach a threshold of minority population share, however, these initial responses may give way to ‘accommodation’ in the form of decreased ethno-nationalist voting, reduced anti-immigration sentiment and lower white outmigration. In the course of our investigation, we ask the policy-relevant question: do residential integration and minority acculturation calm or fuel white working-class exit and voice? In other words, does contact improve ethnic relations or do ‘good fences make good neighbours’? This research adds to existing scholarship by integrating individual data with a more complex array of contextual variables, blending quantitative methods with focus-group qualitative research.

In 2024, 90 of the United Kingdom's 650 Members of Parliament were non-white, 66 of which were members of the Labour Party, while 15 were in the Conservative party, and five non-white MPs were members of the Liberal Democrats.

In 2020/21 there were approximately 696,000 Polish nationals living in the United Kingdom, the highest non-British population at this time. Indian and Irish were the joint second-largest nationalities at approximately 370,000 people.

In the 5 years to March 2019, white people made the highest percentage of trips by car or van out of all ethnic groups (63%).

There are clear patterns of under- and over-representation of ethnic minority groups in the youth justice system. Black and mixed race teenagers are over-represented, relative to their representation in the overall population. Other minority groups are not generally over-represented and some are under-represented.

This study examined whether teenagers from ethnic minorities are treated differently to white teenagers by the youth justice system. It investigated how young people are drawn into the youth justice system, and traced whether disproportionality at the point of entry was preserved, amplified or reduced as they passed through the system.

The data available from the UK Data Archive comprise a database of young offenders. Data were collected from the Youth Offending Information System (YOIS), an electronic system used by most YOTs in the country to case-manage and report on young offenders. A purposive sample of 12 YOTs was used to yield relatively high proportions of offenders from the larger ethnic minority groups. YOIS data on all offenders who had committed an offence in 2006 and their disposals recorded up to December 2007 have been extracted.

Further information is available on the Ethnic Minority Young People: differential treatment in the Youth Justice System ESRC award web page.

39.8% of workers from the Indian ethnic group were in 'professional' jobs in 2021 – the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups in this role.

In 2024/25, the arrest rate for people in England and Wales varied by self-identified ethnicity. People who identified as Black or Black British had an arrest rate of 19 per 1,000 population, compared with ten for people who identified as White, and nine who identified as Asian or Asian British.

Between 2019 and 2023, people living in households in the Asian and ‘Other’ ethnic groups were most likely to be in persistent low income before and after housing costs

The inequities of the COVID-19 pandemic were clear by April 2020 when data showed that despite being just 3.5% of the population in England, Black people comprised 5.8% of those who died from the virus; whereas White people, comprising 85.3% of the population, were 73.6% of those who died. The disproportionate impact continued with, for example, over-policing: 32% of stop and search in the year ending March 2021 were of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) males aged 15-34, despite them being just 2.6% of the population.

The emergency measures introduced to govern the pandemic worked together to create a damaging cycle affecting Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic families and communities of all ages. Key-workers – often stopped by police on their way to provide essential services – could not furlough or work from home to avoid infection, nor support their children in home-schooling. Children in high-occupancy homes lacked adequate space and/ or equipment to learn; such homes also lacked leisure space for key workers to restore themselves after extended hours at work. Over-policing instilled fear across the generations and deterred BAME people – including the mobile elderly - from leaving crowded homes for legitimate exercise, and those that did faced the risk of receiving a Fixed Penalty Notice and a criminal record.

These insights arose from research by Co-POWeR into the synergistic effects of emergency measures on policing, child welfare, caring, physical activity and nutrition. Using community engagement, a survey with 1000 participants and interviews, focus groups, participatory workshops and community testimony days with over 400 people in total, we explored the combined impact of COVID-19 and discrimination on wellbeing and resilience across BAME FC in the UK. This policy note crystallises our findings into a framework of recommendations relating to arts and media communications, systems and structures, community and individual well-being and resilience. We promote long term actions rather than short term reactions.

In brief, we conclude that ignoring race, gender and class when tackling a pandemic can undermine not only wellbeing across Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic families and communities (BAME FC) but also their levels of trust in government. A framework to protect wellbeing and resilience in BAME FC during public health emergencies was developed by Co-POWeR to ensure that laws and guidance adopted are culturally competent.

Two viruses - COVID-19 and discrimination - are currently killing in the UK (Solanke 2020), especially within BAMEFC who are hardest hit. Survivors face ongoing damage to wellbeing and resilience, in terms of physical and mental health as well as social, cultural and economic (non-medical) consequences. Psychosocial (ADCS 2020; The Children's Society 2020)/ physical trauma of those diseased and deceased, disproportionate job-loss (Hu 2020) multigenerational housing, disrupted care chains (Rai 2016) lack of access to culture, education and exercise, poor nutrition, 'over-policing' (BigBrotherWatch 2020) hit BAMEFC severely. Local 'lockdowns' illustrate how easily BAMEFC become subject to stigmatization and discrimination through 'mis-infodemics' (IOM 2020). The impact of these viruses cause long-term poor outcomes. While systemic deficiencies have stimulated BAMEFC agency, producing solidarity under emergency, BAMEFC vulnerability remains, requiring official support. The issues are complex thus we focus on the interlinked and 'intersectional nature of forms of exclusion and disadvantage', operationalised through the idea of a 'cycle of wellbeing and resilience' (CWAR) which recognises how COVID-19 places significant stress upon BAMEFC structures and the impact of COVID-19 and discrimination on different BAMEFC cohorts across the UK, in whose lives existing health inequalities are compounded by a myriad of structural inequalities. Given the prevalence of multi-generational households, BAMEFC are likely to experience these as a complex of jostling over-lapping stressors: over-policed unemployed young adults are more likely to live with keyworkers using public transport to attend jobs in the front line, serving elders as formal/informal carers, neglecting their health thus exacerbating co-morbidities and struggling to feed children who are unable to attend school, resulting in nutritional and digital deprivation. Historical research shows race/class dimensions to national emergencies (e.g. Hurricane Katrina) but most research focuses on the COVID-19 experience of white families/communities. Co-POWeR recommendations will emerge from culturally and racially sensitive social science research on wellbeing and resilience providing context as an essential strand for the success of biomedical and policy interventions (e.g. vaccines, mass testing). We will enhance official decision-making through strengthening cultural competence in ongoing responses to COVID-19 thereby maximizing success of national strategy. Evidenced recommendations will enable official mitigation of disproportionate damage to wellbeing and resilience in BAMEFC. Empowerment is a core consortium value. Supporting UKRI goals for an inclusive research culture, we promote co-design and co-production to create a multi-disciplinary BAME research community spanning multi-cultural UK to inform policy. CO-POWeR investigates the synergistic effect on different age groups of challenges including policing, child welfare, caring and physical activity and nutrition. WP1 Emergency Powers investigates these vague powers to understand their impact on practices of wellbeing and resilience across BAMEFC. WP2 Children, Young People and their Families investigates implications for children/young people in BAMEFC who experience COVID-19 negatively due to disproportionate socio-economic and psychosocial impacts on their families and communities. WP3 Care, Caring and Carers investigates the interaction of care, caring and carers within BAMEFC to identify how to increase the wellbeing and resilience of older people, and paid and unpaid carers. WP4 Physical Activity and Nutrition investigates improving resilience and wellbeing by tackling vulnerability to underlying health conditions in BAMEFC. WP5 Empowering BAMEFC through Positive Narratives channels research from WP1-4 to coproduce fiction and non-fiction materials tackling the vulnerability of BAMEFC to 'mis infodemics'.

In the 2022 to 2023 school year, pupils from the Chinese ethnic group had the highest Attainment 8 score out of all ethnic groups (65.5 out of 90.0).