Europe

Migration on course to change Britain’s demography

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A new academic study says Britain will become one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries in less than 40 years.

The study commissioned by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford found that the proportion of minority groups living in the UK will increase from 10 percent in 2006 to 40 percent by 2050.

The Observatory’s Professor David Coleman said if current trends continue, the so-called majority-ethnic group in the UK – white British – will become a minority before 2070.

“Migration has become the primary driver of demographic change in most high-income countries and may remain so. On current trends European populations will become more ethnically diverse, with the possibility that today’s majority ethnic groups will no longer comprise a numerical majority in some countries”, said Prof Coleman.

According to censuses just 0.25 percent of the population was “foreign-born” in 1841 in England and Wales, rising to 4.4 percent in 1951. By 2010/2011, estimates show, in the whole of the UK, immigrants made up 13 percent of the population.

Prof Coleman said part of the reason behind the decline in white-British members of the population is declining birth rates.

“The continuation of these trends in low-fertility countries would eventually lead to the majority ethnic group becoming a numerical minority of the national population”, added Coleman.

The professor says the UK has the highest migration projection and the point at which the country’s ethnic minority population overtakes the majority at around 2070. However, he adds that this would occur in younger age-groups and major urban areas earlier.

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