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Community and belonging.
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1. Main facts and figures
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more than three-quarters of respondents from each of the broad ethnic groups agreed that people from different backgrounds got on well together in their local area
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Asian respondents were significantly more likely than Black or White respondents to agree that people got on well together in their area
Things you need to know
The Community Life Survey (previously the Citizenship Survey) is a ‘sample survey’ – it collects information from a random sample of the population to make generalisations (reach ‘findings’) about the total population.
Keep in mind when making comparisons between ethnic groups that all survey estimates are subject to a degree of uncertainty, as they are based on a sample of the population. The degree of uncertainty is greater when the number of respondents is small, so it will be highest for ethnic minority groups.
The commentary only refers to differences between groups where they are ‘statistically significant’. Findings are statistically significant when we can be confident that they can be repeated, and are reflective of the total population rather than just the survey sample.
Specifically, the statistical tests used mean we can be confident that if we carried out the same survey on different random samples of the population, 19 times out of 20 we would get similar findings.
Results by ethnic group are available in the reference tables of the latest Community Life Survey publication.
What the data measures
This data measures how well integrated people feel their neighbourhood is, and breaks down that information by ethnicity.
As part of the Community Life Survey, people aged 16 and over were asked, ‘To what extent do you agree or disagree that your local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together?’
People who answered ‘Tend to agree’ or ‘Definitely agree’ were categorised as feeling that their neighbourhood was well integrated.
The ethnic categories used in this data
For this data, the number of people surveyed (the ‘sample size’) was too small to draw any firm conclusions about specific ethnic categories. Therefore, the data is broken down into the following 5 broad groups:
- Asian
- Black
- Mixed
- White
- Other
2. Feeling of community integration by ethnicity
| Ethnicity | Percentage | Number of respondents |
|---|---|---|
| All | 81 | 9,963 |
| Asian | 85 | 1,095 |
| Black | 77 | 354 |
| Mixed | 80 | 460 |
| White | 81 | 7,774 |
| Other | 81 | 159 |
Download table data for ‘Feeling of community integration by ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Feeling of community integration by ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Feeling of community integration Feeling of community integration by ethnicity Summary
This data shows that:
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85% of Asian respondents agreed that their local area was a place where people from different backgrounds tended to get on well together, compared with 81% of White respondents, 80% of respondents of Mixed ethnicity, and 77% of Black respondents
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Asian respondents were significantly more likely than Black and White groups to agree that people got on well together in their area
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no other meaningful differences between respondents were observed
3. Methodology
The CLS consists of an online or paper questionnaire, which was completed by 10,256 individuals in 2016/17.
The survey has deliberately surveyed more households from ethnic minority groups, (excluding White ethnic minorities). This is because the smaller populations of these groups would otherwise give less reliable results.
The 2016/17 survey sample is large enough for the results to be broken down by 5 broad ethnic groups. Before 2016/17, interviews were conducted face to face, and the smaller sample sizes meant it was only possible to compare White people with those from all other ethnicities.
In the most recent survey years, sample sizes were anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 respondents, which was too small for reliable conclusions about differences between the White and Other ethnic groups. For these reasons, results for 2016/17 are not compared with those from previous surveys.
For earlier years, results for ‘White’ and ‘Other’ are available in the published tables in the series of releases for the Community Life Survey.
Weighting:
Weighting is used to adjust the results of a survey to make them representative of the population and improve their accuracy.
For example, a survey which contains 25% females and 75% males will not accurately reflect the views of the general population, which we know is around 50% male and 50% female.
Statisticians rebalance or ‘weight’ the survey results to more accurately represent the general population. This helps to make them more reliable.
Survey weights are usually applied to make sure the survey sample has broadly the same gender, age, ethnic and geographic make up as the general population. In this case they also took account of the over-sampling in any national estimates.
Suppression rules and disclosure control
All the results presented here are based on sample sizes of more than 100 respondents. This is because a smaller number of respondents wouldn’t be enough to draw meaningful conclusions.
Rounding
Estimates in the charts and tables are given to the nearest percentage. Download the data to get more detailed estimates to one decimal place.
Quality and methodology information
4. Data sources
Source
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
Department for Digital, 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
- well-being
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: ethnicity, time, value, sample size