Chatting regularly with neighbours

Published

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1. Main facts and figures

  • in the year to March 2020, 72% of people aged 16 and over in England said they chatted to their neighbours at least once a month – a similar percentage to the past 3 years

  • White people were the most likely out of all ethnic groups to say they chatted to their neighbours at least once a month

2. Things you need to know

What the data measures

The data measures the percentage of people who say they chat to their neighbours (more than just to say hello) at least once a month, by ethnicity. Percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.

Not included in the data

Data based on fewer than 30 people is not included as it makes estimates unreliable.

The ethnic groups used in the data

People chose their ethnicity from a list of 18 ethnic groups used in the 2011 Census.

Data is shown for the following 5 aggregated groups:

  • Asian
  • Black
  • Mixed
  • White
  • Other

This is because the number of people surveyed was too small to make reliable generalisations about all 18 ethnic groups.

Methodology

Read the detailed methodology document (PDF opens in a new window or tab) for the data.

The figures on this page are based on survey data. Find out more about interpreting survey data, including how reliability is affected by the number of people surveyed.

You can also read about how weighting is used to make survey estimates more representative of the group they are about.

3. By ethnicity

Percentage of people aged 16 years and over who said they chat to their neighbours at least once a month, by ethnicity
2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20
Ethnicity 2016-17 % 2016-17 Number of respondents 2017-18 % 2017-18 Number of respondents 2018-19 % 2018-19 Number of respondents 2019-20 % 2019-20 Number of respondents
All 73 10,235 73 10,191 72 10,607 72 10,222
Asian 67 1,108 67 923 66 908 64 795
Black 68 360 62 352 65 348 66 395
Mixed 70 463 68 508 66 497 67 462
White 74 8,009 74 8,089 73 8,548 74 8,045
Other 67 162 54 124 51 124 54 118

Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)

Summary of Chatting regularly with neighbours By ethnicity Summary

The data shows that in the year to March 2020:

  • 72% of people aged 16 and over in England said they chatted to their neighbours at least once a month – a similar percentage to the past 3 years

  • White people (74%) were more likely to say they chatted to neighbours regularly than people from the Asian (64%), Mixed (67%), Black (66%) and Other (54%) ethnic groups

  • there were no significant differences with figures from the previous year for any ethnic group

4. Data sources

Source

Type of data

Survey data

Type of statistic

Official statistics

Publisher

Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Publication frequency

Yearly

Purpose of data source

The Community Life Survey tracks developments in areas that are important to encouraging social action and empowering communities.

These include:

  • volunteering and charitable giving
  • neighbourhood (views about the local area, community cohesion and belonging)
  • civic engagement and social action
  • wellbeing

5. Download the data

Chatting regularly with neighbours - Spreadsheet (csv) 2 KB

This file contains the following: measure, ethnicity, year, value, number of respondents