Most minorities 'think British'

By Cindi John
BBC News Online community affairs reporter

Black people were most likely to consider themselves British

Most of Britain's ethnic minorities regard themselves as British, according to new figures released on Thursday.

Research published by the Office for National Statistics showed people of mixed race and Caribbean descent were most likely to identify with the UK.

Fewer than half of black Africans questioned claimed British as their identity.

The research suggests the corresponding figure for Asians was 75%.

And although nearly all of Britain's 4.6 million people of ethnic minority origin live in England, they were far less likely than white people to call themselves English, preferring the term "British".

The data comes from a new 'national identity' question put to around 300,000 people in the UK.

It is included in Focus On Ethnicity and Identity, one of the ONS' new online reports which provide data based on a variety of sources including the Labour Force Survey, the General Household Survey and the 2001 Census.

The roles of men and women also come in for closer examination with the simultaneous release of Focus On Gender.

Publication of the report on race coincides with new guidance from the ONS on a uniform way of gathering data to get a more accurate picture of Britain's ethnic minority groups.

'Poor health'

Len Cook of the ONS said that defining and measuring ethnicity and national identity was a complex task.

"However, it is vitally important that we do measure ethnicity and national identity and that we do so in a way that is sound, sensitive, relevant and useful," Mr Cook said.

UK'S ETHNIC MINORITIES 1. Asian: 50% 2. Black: 25% 3. Mixed: 15% 4. Chinese: 5% 5. Other: 5% ONS: More mothers returning to work

The Focus on Ethnicity and Identity report concentrates on highlighting the main similarities and differences between Britain's ethnic minority groups.

"The different groups share some characteristics, but there are often greater differences between the individual ethnic groups than between the minority ethnic population as a whole and White British people," the report states.

Among newly-published data is information on health gathered in the 2001 census broken down by ethnic group for the first time.

The figures, which were adjusted to allow comparison between populations with different age structures, showed that nearly all ethnic minority groups, including White Irish, were more likely than White British people to consider themselves to be in poor health.

Bangladeshis and Pakistanis were the most likely to consider their state of health to be 'not good' with Bangladeshi men three times as likely to visit their GP as men in general.

Other information included in the online report analyses existing data on ethnic minorities in relation to family life, education, employment and crime.