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Interracial relationships a bit more common in UK today
Love across the divide: interracial relationships growing in Britain
Romance is breaking down racial barriers in Britain with a sharp rise in inter-ethnic marriage and relationships in the last decade – but white people remain the most segregated
Babies are also more likely to help those of their ethnicity, an effect known as in-group bias, where people favour those with the same characteristics
The next generation is breaching racial divides Photo: ALAMY
By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor
3:46PM BST 03 Jul 2014
The UK is becoming a racial melting pot with a surge in the number of relationships and marriages across ethnic dividing lines in the last decade, according to official figures.
[But while the number of people from black, Asian and mixed-race backgrounds settling down with someone from another group have all risen, white people remain by far the most segregated on the domestic front.
New analysis of census figures shows that the number of people in England and Wales living with or married to someone from another group jumped 35 per cent to 2.3 million in the 10-years up to the last census.
During that period the number of people described on census forms as “mixed” or “multiple” ethnicity almost doubled from just 660,000 in 2001 to 1.2 million in 2011, making it by far the fastest growing category.
The mixed-race population is also much younger than the wider population – almost half are under 16 compared with only 19 per cent overall.
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Overall almost one in 10 people living in Britain is married to or living with someone from outside their own ethnic group, the analysis from the Office for National Statistics shows.
But the overall figure conceals wide variations. Only one in 25 white people have settled down with someone from outside their own racial background.
By contrast 85 per cent of people from mixed-race families have themselves set up home with someone from another group.
People from an African background are five and a half times as likely to be in a mixed relationship as white people, while those of Indian ancestry are three times as likely.
Age is the crucial factor with those in their 20s and 30s more than twice as likely to be living with someone from another background as those over 65, reflecting a less rigid approach to identity over time.
But the figures also shows marked differences in attitudes to outsiders within different communities – often reflected in the whether people are married or cohabiting.
For example, in the British Bangladeshi community, those who are cohabiting are seven times more likely to be with someone from another background as those who are married.
It suggests that cultural barriers still make it more difficult for those in inter-ethnic relationships to formalise their status by marriage.
But the fact that those in mixed relationships are overall 50 per cent more likely to be cohabiting than married also reflects the shift away from marriage among younger people.
An ONS commentary explained: “Age is likely to play a factor in inter-ethnic relationships in a number of ways.
"Older and younger people from different ethnic groups may have different attitudes across the generations.
“For example, some older people may have more traditional views on inter-ethnic relationships and they were also more likely to have entered into a relationship at a time when England and Wales was less ethnically diverse.
“Younger people are more likely to have grown up in the UK and exposed to other ethnic groups and to respond to observed changes in society, in terms of increasing diversity.”
The contrast between white people and other communities echoes the findings of the Social Integration Commission, a study published earlier this week, which showed that white people are the least integrated with other groups in their social lives.
The study, which analysed the friendship groups of 4,000 people, noted that a typical white person mixes with 50 per cent fewer people from other groups as might be expected given the make-up of where they live.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...n-Britain.html
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Originally Posted by Apocalypse
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