FOI Reference: FOI/2022/4314
You asked
Do you make a distinction between ethnic minority Brits and migrants?
For example, using nationality and ethnicity (e.g. Black British compared with an ethnic minority who does not identify with a British nationality)
If so, where can I find this data?
This might help us learn who is a 2nd generation migrant in the UK
What information do you have on second-generation migration? (I can see births to non-UK born mothers – anything else?)
We said
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request regarding ethnicity and migration.
Whilst the Office for National Statistics collects and provides data on both ethnic group and migration as two distinct measures, we also acknowledge that ethnic group is subjectively meaningful to an individual.
As set out in the Government Statistical Service (GSS) Ethnicity harmonised standard, ethnicity is defined as the ethnic group that the person completing the Census feels they belong to. It could be based on their culture, family background, identity or physical appearance. On the England & Wales 2021 Census, the ethnic group question was asked alongside questions on national identity, religion and language, as a suite of cultural identity questions allowing people to identify as they choose across these questions, using the tick-boxes or the write-in options, supported online by the new search-as-you-type functionality. Asking these questions alongside ethnic group is also advised in the harmonised standard. These cultural questions are distinct from the migration measures.
An international migrant is a person who moves from one country to another. Further details can be found on our website glossary. A long-term immigrant is defined as someone who intends to stay in the country for at least 12 months, a long-term emigrant one who intends to leave the country for at least 12 months. International migration figures are generally published broken down by nationality. Ethnicity is not collected for the purpose of measuring international migration. We did, however, publish a research paper and experimental statistics on 25 August 2017 focusing on estimates by ethnicity, country of birth, and nationality that align with the mid-year population estimates of 2016.
Information on the datasets published by the ONS on international migration can be found in International migration -- table of contents. The latest bulletin published by the ONS on Long Term International Migration can be found here.
Analysis on second generation migrants in the 2021 census analysis plans is the first time that ONS will be doing research on second generation migrants. This analysis will focus on UK-born children living in England and Wales, whose parents were born outside of the UK. The comparisons with the 2011 and 2001 census will be retrospective, so the analysis presented from those censuses will be the first time that these data will have been published. The only indicator that we could recommend until that point is births by parents country of birth. This contains data on births to non-UK born parents (so, by proxy, a glimpse at the second generation of migrants).