Timeline 1900 – 2024

2001 UK Censuses

The 2001 Census Development Programme unequivocally recommended the inclusion of ‘Mixed’ categorisation. The England and Wales Census form included four tick boxes under a ‘Mixed’ heading: ‘White and Black Caribbean’, ‘White and Black African’, ‘White and Asian’, and a write-in ‘Any other Mixed background’. The censuses for Scotland and Northern Ireland offered only a ‘mixed’ write in category.

In the 2001 England and Wales Census, 661,034 persons identified as ‘Mixed’, 1.3% of the total population. They comprised 237,420 ‘White and Black Caribbeans’, 78,911 ‘White and Black Africans’, 189,015 ‘White and Asians’, and 155,688 ‘Other Mixed’. Around another 16,000 ‘Mixed’ people were enumerated in the rest of the United Kingdom.
People in the ‘Mixed’ group had the youngest age profile of any ethnic group in Great Britain, 50% being under 16 years of age in 2001. Four-fifths (79 per cent) of people with ‘Mixed’ ethnic identities were born in the United Kingdom.