Understanding recent internal migration of small cultural groups in England and Wales^*

* All census data used in this paper are Crown Copyright. The 2011 safeguarded microdata were made available via the UK Data Service and accessed under the terms of its End User Licence. Land Registry house price index, ONS Regional Household Income, and ONS Regional Labour Market data are all Crown Copyright.

ABSTRACT

Taking advantage of the ^*availability of 2011 England and Wales census microdata, and recognising the importance of internal migration in shaping the size and nature of communities, this paper seeks to identify and quantify the underlying determinants of internal migration of small cultural groups. The Jewish group is one of the longest present minority groups in Britain. Three other groups (Arab, Chinese, and Sikh), which have been present in significant numbers for a much shorter period, are also examined. Multivariate binary logistic regression has been applied to data extracted from the 2011 safeguarded microdata files, to understand whether, having controlled for the variables identified, there remain residual unexplained differences between Jewish, other smaller group, and general migration levels. The study shows that the initial wide variation in migration propensity between these cultural groups is partly explained by compositional differences between groups, but that even after controlling for individual-level socio-demographic characteristics, regional location and distance of migration, cultural differences in migration behaviour remain. Overall, the study shows that there are fewer differences between Jewish and white British migration levels than for the other three groups, for whom a small but significant ‘cultural group penalty’, inhibiting migration propensity, remains.

KEYWORDS:

• Internal migration
• census
• religion
• ethnic group
• England and Wales

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and, particularly, Dr Paul Williamson, for his advice and comments on an early draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

* All census data used in this paper are Crown Copyright. The 2011 safeguarded microdata were made available via the UK Data Service and accessed under the terms of its End User Licence. Land Registry house price index, ONS Regional Household Income, and ONS Regional Labour Market data are all Crown Copyright.

1. Though for some types of move, the post-event characteristics are more pertinent – for example, although the intention to become a student might be known well in advance of a person moving from the parental home to study elsewhere, the change in personal characteristic relating to the move – becoming a student – only occurs as or after the move takes place, and is only recorded then.

2. Neither the LFS nor any other data source examined permitted a 12 months prior comparison to be made for any other characteristics found to be relevant in this study.

3. Represented by the age of the individual for those living in communal establishments.

4. The analysis has additionally been carried out with persons under the age of 16 excluded, to determine whether there is a material penalty involved in including the full age range in the model. All trends and conclusions described in this document would also apply to an adult only model. As omitting 20% of the population from the analysis would provide only a marginal improvement in model fit (Nagelkerke R² increases from 0.27 only to 0.29), the full age range has been retained in the modelling.

5. That is, the nine formal Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) level 1/former government office regions in England, plus Wales. Additionally, as the small cultural groups have a strong London focus to their spatial distribution, and there are recognised socio-economic differences between inner and outer London, the London Region has been split into inner and outer parts (as defined by ONS) to spatially disaggregate their area of highest concentration.

6. Unemployment figures are the rate for those aged 16–64 for the September to November quarter of 2010 sourced from the LFS Regional Labour Market: HI00 – Headline LFS Indicators for All Regions, May 2013 (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-265428). Income figures used are gross disposable household income per head for 2010, sourced from ONS Regional Household Income, Spring 2013 Table 1.1 (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-298694). The house price index was obtained by averaging the monthly index values from April 2010 to March 2011 from the Land Registry website (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry). Due to incompatibilities between the official English and Welsh indices of multiple deprivation, regional averages were calculated from the ‘deprivation indicators of a household’ variable already included in the census microdata files; it includes education, health, employment, and housing deprivation markers.