Seminar 4 Population

Seminar № 4

Topic: “POPULATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. DIALECTS OF ENGLISH.”

1. Demographic situation in the country. Conurbations. Density.

The population at the beginning of 2025 is 70 million people. According to forecasts, by the beginning of 2026, the number of residents in the country will increase by 438,733 people and reach 70,300,723.

Births and deaths. For the entire year of 2025, approximately 876,156 children are expected to be born and 636,636 people are expected to die. This is 2,400 births and 1,744 deaths per day.

The average daily migration increase in population will be 538 people.

The average life expectancy in the country is 80 years. This is much higher than the global average, which is recorded at 71 years.

The total demographic burden ratio is 51.2%. This indicates that the country has a high social burden on society.

The UK’s population is ageing. The birth and death rates are falling.

In terms of population distribution, almost one-third of the population lives in England’s southeast, which is predominantly urban and suburban. London is the capital city of UK, with population over 8 million, the population density of which is just over 5,200 per square kilometer.Based on our research, UK population will reach 69.647 million by the end of 2025. The calculation is based on the average growth rate of 0.69% over last 13 years since 2011[https://www.ukpopulation.org/]. The following table shows UK is enjoying healthy and consistent population growth over last 13 years range from 0.62% to 0.80% adding 0.41 million to 0.52 million people to the overall population. The reasons behind the growth are: growth of birth rate, longer life expectancy and growth of immigrants.

During pre-industrial era, United Kingdom experienced high birth and morality rates and slow population growth. During industrial era, UK experienced high birth rate and falling morality, as a result, faster population growth. Since then the growth has slowed down again due to falling birth rate. Last two decades, the growth relied on international migration to UK.

According to Office for National Statistics (ONS), A growing proportion of UK inhabitants are aged at least 65, with the percentage in this age group rising from 14.1% in 1975 to 17.8% in 2015. Over the same period, the proportion of children aged 15 and younger has declined from over 24% to less than 20%.England and Wales have the largest populations ever recorded.On the day of the most recent census, March 21, 2021, there were 59,597,300 people living in England and Wales. This is more than 3.5 million (6.3%) more than in 2011 and represents the largest census population ever recorded.The East of England had the highest population growth in England, increasing by around 8.3%, or 488,000 people. The North East of England saw the smallest increase, increasing by 1.9% or around 50,000 people. Wales’ population increased by 1.4%, or 44,000 people.

It is forecast that a fifth (20.2%) of the population will be aged 65 and over in 2025, rising to a quarter (24.6%) in 2045.It is projected the population of UK will reach more than 77 million by 2050. By then, it will surpass Germany and France to become the most populous country in Europe.

Conurbations - an aggregation or continuous network of urban communities. When Sir Patrick Geddes, a Scottish biologist turned sociologist, sat down in 1915 to write Cities in Evolution, a work on urban planning, he needed a word. How should he refer to thickly populated regions consisting of a sprawling range of cities clustered together? "Some name, then, for these city-regions, these town aggregates, is wanted…. What of 'conurbations'?" he asked rhetorically early on in his work. For his coinage, Geddes combined urbs (the Latin word for "city," already familiar in urban and suburb) with the Latin prefix con- ("together") and the English noun suffix -ation. It turned out that his word suited English speakers just fine-we've been using it ever since[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conurbation]. There’re 7 metropolitan areas (conurbations): Greater London, Greater Manchester, Merseyside (Liverpool), South Yorkshire (Sheffield), Tyne and Wear (Newcastle upon Tyne), the West Midlands (Birmingham), West Yorkshire (Leeds).

2. Ethnic and national minorities. Immigration waves in the UK (XIXth – XXth centuries).

The term ethnic minority is used to describe an individual who belongs to an ethnic group that is marginalized by society because of social and cultural characteristics that are different from, or devalued by, the dominant ethnic or cultural group. Ethnic minorities are ethnic groups that live as a minority on the territory of a state . As part of a state people , the minority differs from the rest of the population in several characteristics such as language , culture or religion . In North America , one speaks of ethnic minorities even if they only come from the same part of the world and the population group represents a numerical minority, e.g. B. in the groups of African American or Latin American . The relatives remain in the ethnic minority, even if there are no linguistic, cultural or religious differences to the rest of the population. In many regions of the world, ethnic minorities live scattered across several states. As a rule, they share a feeling of togetherness, but the possibility of cross-border contacts is often restricted by the states concerned. There are examples of this in Spain ( Basques , Catalans ), Romania ( Hungary ), the Middle East ( Kurds , Yazidis , Iraqi Turkmens , Assyrians , Mandaeans , Shabaks , Faili-Lurs (Lurs in Iraq) and Lurs in Iran) or in Vietnam (Annamite Mountain Peoples).If an ethnic minority in Europe falls under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe and is recognized under constitutional law, it is often referred to as a national minority under international law . In many cases, minority protection rights then apply .

At the European level, the term “national minority” is often used as an umbrella term for religious, linguistic, ethnic and cultural minorities. The term national minority is used both in the documents of the Council of Europe and in those of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) . However, even within these organizations there is no universally accepted definition of this term. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe attempted to define it in 1993. In a draft of an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on the protection of national minorities (which did not materialize), a group of people is referred to as a national minority who are resident in the territory of a state and are its citizens,

maintain long-term, solid and permanent ties to this state, have particular ethnic, cultural, religious or linguistic characteristics,

are sufficiently representative, although their number is smaller than that of the rest of the population of this state or a region of this state,

are inspired by the desire to preserve together the characteristics characteristic of their identity, in particular their culture, their traditions, their religion or their language. For example: It is irrelevant here whether this group ethnically belongs to the people of another state (e.g. Danes in Germany, Hungarians in Romania , Italians in Slovenia , German minorities in Eastern Europe such as the Danube Swabians ), whether they live as minorities in several states (e.g. Frisians in Germany and the Netherlands, Roma in large parts of Europe) or is based as a closed ethnic group in just one country (e.g. Sorbs in Germany, Kashubians in Poland ).

White British is the predominant race in UK. Whites make up the majority, about 92%. The English represent about 84%. Other nationalities of the UK are Jews, Poles, Germans, Frenchmen, Italians, migrants from India, Pakistan, African countries. Black – 2%, Indian – 1.8%, Pakistani – 1.3%, mixed – 1.2%, other – 1.6%.

The results of the 2021 Census. The main changes were: the ‘Roma’ group was added under the ‘White’ ethnic group, a write-in response was added for the ‘Black African’ ethnic group. 1)Asian or Asian British; 2)Indian; 3)Pakistani (Bradford in West Yorkshire is the town which is totally Pakistanian); 4)Bangladeshi; 5) Chinese; 6)any other Asian background; 7)Black, Black British, Caribbean or African; 8)Caribbean; 9)African; 10) any other Black, Black British, or Caribbean background; 11)mixed or multiple ethnic groups; 12)White and Black Caribbean; 13)White and Black African; 14)White and Asian; 15)any other Mixed or multiple ethnic background; 16)White: English, Welsh, Scottish, N.Irish or British, Irish, Gypsy or Irish traveller, Roma, any other White background; 17)Other ethnic groups: arab, any other.

The term ‘Roma’ is commonly used in Europe to describe a variety of historically itinerant communities with distinct languages, cultures, religions. In the UK, policymakers and researchers use 3 umbrella terms – Gypsy, Roma, Traveller (GRT). Gypsies – people of Romany origin who have been present in England since the XVI cent. after migrating from the Indian subcontinent to Europe in the late Middle ages. Roma are those who migrated to the UK from Eastern, Central European countries – from 1990 onwards. Travellers are distinguished as trad-lly nomadic (кочевой) people of Irish origins (non-perm resident).

Ethnic group	Pop-n	% of total UK pop-n
White	64,153,888	92,1
Mixed race	677,117	1,2
Asian or Asian British, Indian	1,053,411	1,8
Pakistani	747,285	1,3
Bangladeshi	283,063	0,5
Other asian:Bl.or Bl.British	247,544	0,4
Bl.Caribbean	565,576	1,0
Bl.African	187,277	0,5
Bl.(others)	97,585	0,2
Chinese	277,403	0,4
Other	230,515	0,4

Immigration XIX century

Russian Jews fleeing persecution, setted in East London. Irish immigrants fleeing from famine. In fact, the irish have steadily arrived in Great Britain throughout history, but the early 19th century was the largest wave, when they settled in Manchester and London. The Irish were fleeing the potato famine of the 1840s, which led to mass migration to the United Kingdom. Many Irish only temporarily settled in Britain, but many remained.

Immigrants from Eastern Europe, Germany, and the Russian Empire - Starting in the 1870s, a significant number of migrants who were not subjects of the British Crown came to the United Kingdom. For example, since the 1880s, many Jews from the western part of the Russian Empire have fled due to anti-Semitic persecution.

Settlers from Australia and New Zealand - in the second half of the 19th century, a new wave of settlers arrived after the discovery of gold deposits. By 1901, the white population of the continent had reached almost 4 million people.

Settlers from Canada - valuables, taxes, and fees, as well as gold mined in the colonies, flowed back to England.

Immigration XX century.

During the 2 WW 1000 of men from across the Empire fought for Britain. India provided 1.3 million soldiers for the First World War. During the Second WW almost 60 000 British merchant seamen came from the subcontinent. Bengali (from Bangl.or India) seamen went to work in Scottish mines. After the Second WW there were significant labour shortages. 157.000 Polish people came to settle in the UK, they were followed by other people from Italy, Ukraine, Germany. The partition of India (1947) was the beginning of immigration from South Asia.

The large communities from the West Indies and South Asian sub-continent came to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. There are also groups from the USA and Canada, Australia, China, various European communities such as Greek and Turkish Cypriots, Spaniards (immigrants from the dominions).

There was also a big niche in the market for ethnic restaurants – many people from Commonwealth countries came to Britain during the 1960s; the British were ready to try some good foreign food and that’s the reason why new restaurants appeared.

3Religion in Britain today. The Church of England (its history, Reformation in England) http://primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/tudors/reformation.html ,

http://resources.woodlandsjunior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/hisreligions.html

4The class system. Social rates. Social grading.

5Marriage procedures in the UK.

6Dialects of English.