Ethnic groups in Britain

Ethnic Group	2001			2011
	Number	%	Number		%
White	54,153,898	92.12%	55,073,552		87.17%
White: Irish Traveller			63,193		0.10%
Asian or Asian British: Total	2,578,826	4.39%	4,373,339		6.92%
Asian or Asian British: Indian	1,053,411	1.79%	1,451,862		2.30%
Asian or Asian British: Pakistani	747,285	1.27%	1,173,892		1.86%
Asian or Asian British: Bangladeshi	283,063	0.48%	451,529		0.71%
Asian or Asian British: Chinese	247,403	0.42%	433,150		0.69%
Asian or Asian British: Asian Other	247,664	0.42%	861,815		1.36%
Black or Black British	1,148,738	1.95%	1,904,684		3.01%
British Mixed	677,117	1.15%	1,250,229		1.98%
Other: Total	230,615	0.39%	580,374		0.92%
Total	58,789,194	100.00%	63,182,178		100.00%

Muiticultural britain

Immediately after the Second World War, Britain looked like a prosperous and friendly country for an immigrant worker. All Commonwealth citizens were free to enter the country and look for work, which was plentiful. However, since the Immigration Act of 1962, successive governments have introduced regulations to restrict the number of immigrants.

It is difficult to get statistics on race, but the following patterns are clear. The percentage of non-whites in Britain increased quite rapidly between 1945 and the end of the 1970s. At present, more than half the non-whites in Britain are immigrants, but it will soon be the case that the majority of non-whites are people born in Britain.

Ethnic minorities are concentrated in the cities. The percentage of numbers of ethnic minorities who are unemployed, or in low-grade jobs, is higher than in the population аs a whole.

Racial discrimination and poor living conditions have contributed to racial violence, especially in the day-to-day form of гelations between young blacks and the police, or in the more extreme form of inner-city riots. This is despite the Race Relations Act (l976), which was designed to promote equality of opportunity for people of all races.

People have been migrating to Britain for centuries. Immigrants have come to Britain from all parts of the world. Some came to avoid political or religious persecution, others to find a better way of life or to escape poverty. Others still came to join members of their family who had already settled in Britain. Many of these immigrants were refugees. In the 1930s Jews fled persecution in other parts of Europe to settle in Britain. After the end of the Second World War many citizens of Eastern European countries decided to stay in Britain. More recently refugees have come from аs far afield as Uganda, Chile, Iran, and Sri Lanka.

Another group of immigrants were the citizens of the former British Empire. In the 1940s and 50s, people from the West Indies came to find work in Britain. Later, immigrants from Cyprus, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong and Bangladesh arrived, each bringing their own distinctive language, culture and religion to this country.

Now the children and grandchildren of this last group of immigrants have grown up and taken their places in a multicultural Britain. More than 214 million strong, black Britons tend to be concentrated in particular areas of inner cities but their influence extends well beyond the big cities. Black Britons are well represented in sport and the media and there are few small towns in Britain that don't have an Indian or a Chinese restaurant and a Pakistani-owned post office or grocery.

Although racial discrimination was outlawed by the Race Relations act of 1975, it does still occur — sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly. Black footballers, for example, are sometimes subjected to racial taunts from supporters of opposing teams. How do they feel about it? John Barnes, one of England’s black footballers, shrugs his shoulders. "If you let these people get to you,' he says, 'then they've won. I just ignore them and try to play even better".