Feeling of belonging to Britain

Published

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It has been replaced by Community and belonging.

1. Main facts and figures

  • 84% of people aged 16 and over in England said they felt strongly that they belong to Britain in the year to March 2020
  • between 77% and 86% of people from the 5 different ethnic groups said they felt strongly that they belong to Britain

2. Things you need to know

What the data measures

This data measures how strongly people from different ethnic groups feel they belong to Britain.

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 over time

Percentage of respondents who feel fairly or very strongly that they belong to Britain, 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 85 7,343 85 7,537 84 7,891 84 7,820
Asian 84 993 84 859 83 840 85 728
Black 81 197 82 233 75 213 86 253
Mixed 79 143 73 197 80 200 77 211
White 85 5,821 86 6,107 85 6,464 84 6,243
Other 68 120 79 85 62 96 78 79

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

Summary of Feeling of belonging to Britain By ethnicity over time Summary

The data shows that, in the year to March 2020:

  • 84% of people aged 16 and over in England said they felt strongly that they belong to Britain
  • there were no reliable differences for the feeling of belonging to Britain 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

Feeling of belonging to Britain - Spreadsheet (csv) 2 KB

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