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.

As of 2021, households in the United Kingdom where the head of the household was of an other ethnic background had the highest proportion of household income earning more than 2,000 pounds a week, at 11 percent.

An average of 79% of Bangladeshi households were in the 2 lowest income quintiles (after housing costs were deducted) between April 2019 and March 2022

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 2021, 20.1% of people from the Indian ethnic group were in higher managerial and professional occupations – the highest percentage out of all ethnic groups in this socioeconomic group.

Households in the Indian and White Other ethnic groups received the highest percentage of their income from employment out of all ethnic groups.

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 2023/24 the stop and search rate for Black people in England and Wales was 22.4 searches per 1,000 people, compared with the stop and search rate for white people of six per one thousand people. People in the categories of 'other', mixed and Asian ethnic backgrounds also had a higher stop and search rate than that of the white population.

In the 3 years to March 2021, white British families were the most likely to receive a type of state support.

The research collected qualitative interview data from 55 undocumented migrants and 24 ethnic enclave employers from Bangladeshi, Chinese, Turkish (including Kurds from Turkey and Northern Cypriots) communities who were living in London. The three groups were selected for their sizeable presence among London’s minority ethnic communities but also their migration histories, reasons for migration and pathways to the UK have been different, providing the variance of experiences that we were looking for in the study. The fieldwork took place between February 2012 and April 2013.

Interviews with undocumented migrants:

Of the 55 interviews carried out, 20 interviews were with undocumented migrants from China, 20 with undocumented migrants from Turkey (including Kurds and Northern Cypriots) people and 15 with undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.

Trained interviewers, with relevant community language skills, carried out the interviews with undocumented migrants in first languages and translated, transcribed and anonymised the transcripts. The project team carried out detailed training about the project, in-depth interviewing, translations and transcriptions, networking and sampling and research ethics.

A number of starting points into networks were used to identify interviewees as a way of ensuring greater diversity than would have been the case if we had drawn from fewer networks, as networks are often quite homogeneous.

Indicative quotas to obtain different social and demographic profiles that were relevant for the research questions were used to guide the fieldwork. These included quotas for sex, length of time in the UK and place of employment, either within or outside of the ethnic enclave. In the final sample of undocumented migrants, 40 were men and 15 were women reflecting the greater difficulties we had locating women who were living as undocumented migrants due, in part, to the mores hidden nature of their experiences within domestic settings.

Interviews with Employers:

Interviews were carried out with 24 employers. The final sample of employers comprised 7 Bangladeshi, 8 Chinese and 9 Turkish entrepreneurs of whom 6 were Kurds from Turkey, 2 were Turkish and 1 was from Northern Cyprus. Five interviewees were female and 19 were male. With the exception of one Bangladeshi heritage woman who ran a family owned business, all the other employers interviewed were migrants born outside of Britain. Length of time in Britain ranged from 9 years to over 40 years.

The interviews were carried out in English by the university based research team. Employers were identified for interview using chain referral methods starting at multiple access points for greater sample heterogeneity. Initial points of access included cold calling at businesses, gatekeepers from community organisations and through the networks of the community researchers. Our success at finding employers willing to be interviewed was due in part to the timing of the fieldwork, which took place after most of the interviews with undocumented migrants had been carried out and so we were able to effectively utilise some of the networks that had been developed for that part of the research.

An asynchronous internet focus group, conducted through an email group was carried out with seven employer participants.

This research explores the labour market experiences of undocumented migrants from Bangladesh, China and Turkey (including Kurds) living and working in London and the motivations of minority ethnic entrepreneurs employing people from these three groups. The study examines the ways in which undocumented migrants and their employers use social networks and other resources in relation to job seeking and work and how working relationships operate within frameworks of ethnicity, class and gender. Any additional disadvantages that might exist as a consequence of imbalanced power relationships due to immigration status and the extent to which employment relationships within ethnic enclave employment replicate or differ from employment relationships in general are examined. We are concerned to understand the ways in which being undocumented intersects with employment experiences and decision making about work and recruitment from both the perspectives of migrants and their employers, while engaging critically with theories of social capital. The research is based on in-depth interviews with 60 undocumented migrants, male and female, 30 working inside ethnic enclaves and 30 outside and with 24 minority ethnic employers running enclave businesses. Two asynchronous Internet focus groups with employers of undocumented migrants will be conducted to obtain a collective employer perspective.

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...

In the 10 years to July 2024, the percentage of further education students who were from Asian, Black, Mixed and Other ethnic backgrounds went up from 19.7% to 27.9%.

White people made up 83.4% of civil servants in March 2024 – they made up 80.7% of the working age population (16 to 64 year olds) in the 2021 Census.

Households from the Black Caribbean, Mixed White and Black Caribbean, and Bangladeshi ethnic groups were most likely to rent social housing in the 2 years from April 2021 to March 2023.

A level students in the Chinese ethnic group had an average point score of 39.83 in the 2022 to 2023 academic year – the highest score out of all ethnic groups.

In 2024, 94.0% of all fire and rescue staff in England were White (out of those whose ethnicity was known).

In the year ending in March 2024, 31.3% of victims of racially or religiously aggravated hate crime were Asian, 30.6% were White, and 23.1% were Black.

Migrants from the United Kingdom have long been Australia’s primary immigrant group and in 2023 there were roughly 960 thousand English-born people living in Australia. India and China held second and third place respectively with regard to Australia’s foreign-born population. The relative dominance of Asian countries in the list of top ten foreign-born residents of Australia represents a significant shift in Australia’s immigration patterns over the past few decades. Where European-born migrants had previously overshadowed other migrant groups, Australian migration figures are now showing greater migration numbers from neighboring countries in Asia and the Pacific. A history of migration Australia is often referred to as an ‘immigrant nation’, alongside the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. Before the Second World War, migrants to Australia were almost exclusively from the UK, however after 1945, Australia’s immigration policy was broadened to attract economic migrants and temporary skilled migrants. These policy changes saw and increase in immigrants particularly from Greece and Italy. Today, Australia maintains its status as an ‘’Immigrant nation’’, with almost 30 percent of the population born overseas and around 50 percent of the population having both that were born overseas. Australian visas The Australian immigration program has two main categories of visa, permanent and temporary. The permanent visa category offers three primary pathways: skilled, family and humanitarian. The skilled visa category is by far the most common, with more than a million permanent migrants living in Australia on this visa category at the last Australian census in 2021. Of the temporary visa categories, the higher education visa is the most popular, exceeding 180 thousand arrivals in 2023.

As recorded by the source, Moroccans ranked as the foreign nationality with more residents in Spain in 2023, closely followed by Romanians. After years of losing its foreign population, Spain’s immigration figures started to pick up in 2015, with the number of people that moved to the Mediterranean country surpassing the number of foreigners that decided to leave.

A matter of balance The net migration rate of Spain changed its course mainly due to the great inflow of foreigners that move to reside in the Mediterranean country. Spain’s immigration flow slowed down after the 2008 financial crisis, albeit the number of foreigners that opted to change their residence saw a significant growth in the last years. In 2022, Colombians ranked first as the foreign nationality that most relocated to Spain, distantly followed by Moroccans and Ukranians.

Spain does not have the highest number of immigrants in Europe In recent years, the European Union confronted a rising number of refugees arriving from the Middle East. Migration figures show that Germany accommodated approximately 15 million foreign-born citizens, ranking it as the country that most hosted immigrants in Europe in 2022. By comparison, Spain’s foreign population stood slightly over seven million, positioning the Western Mediterranean country third on the European list of foreign-born population. Unfortunately, thousands of persons have died ore gone missing trying to reach Spanish territory, as more and more irregular migrants opt to use dangerous maritime routes to arrive at Southern Europe from Africa's coasts.