FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3125
You asked
Please provide for Births in England and Wales details of the following:
The total number of live births in England and Wales for each year from 2015 to 2020 born to women describing themselves (or being described as) as muslim.
As 1. above, but for all women describing themselves (or being described as) either of Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage.
As 1. above but for all women describing themselves (or being described as) African/Afro-Caribbean heritage.
The comparative live birth rates between the categories set out in 1, 2 and 3 above and those women describing themselves (or being described as) White British, White Irish, White Welsh and Native British only for the said years 2015 to 2020.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We collect data on birth registrations provided by General Register Office (GRO) for the purposes of publishing statistics on life events in England and Wales.
Birth statistics are compiled from information supplied when births are registered as part of civil registration, a legal requirement. Information on religion of the parents is not collected at birth registration, therefore we are unable to provide the requested figures.
Ethnicity of mother is not collected at birth registration. Birth registrations are linked to their corresponding NHS birth notification to enable analysis of the ethnicity of the baby, but not the mother. However, the Parents' country of birth dataset provides annual data on live births in England and Wales by parents' country of birth. Please see table 1 within the dataset to view data relating to live births by country of birth of mother. Pakistan can be found on row 31 and Bangladesh can be found on row 32.
As mentioned above, table 1 of the Parent's country of birth dataset hold live birth figures by country of mother, please see rows 5-19 for Africa and row 24 for Caribbean. The definition of birthplace of mother held by us are not categorised by ethnicity. We do not hold data specifically for Afro-Caribbean heritage.
As mentioned above, ethnicity of mother is not collected at birth registration, therefore we do not hold this information. However, we do hold Live births by sex, parity and ethnicity, England and Wales, 2015 to 2019 aggregated, this dataset is based on ethnicity of the baby which was stated by the mother at birth registration.
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.