Nowadays the religious variable is present in most national surveys in the UK. However, this has only been possible since the last 10 years as the variable was introduced for
54 the first time with the 2001 Census. In the 1950s and 1960s, the discourses on ethnic minorities were principally marked by the idea of colour. The emphasis move to race during the 1970s and 1980s, and shifted toward ethnicity during the 1990s (Peach, 2006). Until the late 1990s researchers who wanted to conduct analysis on religion could only gain partial information by relying on other variables, such as ethnicity or country of origin, which only partially reflect the religious affiliation of the groups (Becher, 2003). From the mid 1990s the National Surveys of Ethnic Minorities (Modood et al., 1997) represented the first change in the analysis of race and ethnicity in Britain by introducing the new dimension of religion. The question was then added to the 2001 Census and answered by 92% of people in England and Wales reflecting for the first time the new plurality of faith communities in Britain (Peach, 2006).
Analysis of 2001 Census data on ethnicity and religion suggests that South Asian Muslim families tend to be larger, have fewer childless couples, have higher rates of extended families, lower rate of lone parent families, cohabiting and divorce compared to families from other ethnic religious backgrounds (Dobbs et al., 2006).
Statisticians and demographers in the UK have defined a household as ‘a person living alone or a group of people who have the address as their only or main residence and who either share one meal a day or share the living accommodation’ (ONS, 2009, p.19). This concept is different from the idea of family which implies a relationship amongst members that goes beyond the sharing of the address and ‘comprises a group of people consisting of a married or cohabiting couple with or without child(ren), or a lone parent with child(ren). It also includes a married or cohabiting couple with their grandchild(ren) or a lone grandparent with his or her grandchild(ren) where there are no children in the intervening generation in the household (Ibid). Households are further classified as one person households (such as pensioners living on their own), family households (including married couples, cohabiting and lone parent families) or other types of households.
The 2001 Census shows high variations across different ethnic and religious groups in terms of household size, presence of dependent children and extended families; level of deprivation measured by overcrowding and the proportion of households with no working adults.
55
Muslim households
Historical research has outlined that household composition has not been subjected to substantial changes at least since the industrialization era when family shifted from extended to nuclear (Coontz, 1992). This pattern toward a smaller family has stayed constant between the 17th and the 20th century, and the average size of family in western countries only fell in the early 20th century from 4 or 5 members to about 3 (Finch, 1989). Other research tracked back the origin of the contemporary nuclear family structure to even earlier in the time, starting from the 15th century (Laslett, 1972).
The 2001 Census confirms that the one family household is the prevalent type of household in Britain nowadays: 63 per cent of the households in Britain in 2001 were in fact family households, compared to 30 per cent of one person households and 7 per cent of other households (Dobbs et. al, 2006, p.84-85). This trend also applied to Muslim households: in 2001 65 per cent of the Muslims in the UK lived in one family household (Ibid).
Muslim households were overall much more likely to contain married couples and amongst the least likely to include cohabiting and lone parent families compared to Christian, Jewish and Buddhist households, as shown in the table below (Dobbs et al., 2006; ONS, 2004). Similarly, South Asian groups were more likely to live in married couple households than any other group: 54 per cent of Bangladeshi; 53 per cent of Indian; and 51 per cent of Pakistani households compared to 37 per cent of White British households (Dobbs et al., 2006, p. 85).
Divorce and separation are less common amongst Muslim households with dependent children: the 2001 Census suggested that only 20 per cent of the Muslims were living in lone parent households because of divorce, compared to 47 per cent of Jewish; 38 per cent of Christian; 36 per cent of Buddhist and 30 per cent of Hindu and Sikh households (Dobbs et al., 2006). Muslims living in lone parent households were the most likely to be widowed (13 per cent of Muslim lone parents were widowed compared to 5 per cent of the Christians) which may result from the age gap characteristic of many Muslim couples. However, the Census also highlighted that the proportion of South Asian lone parent households with dependent children have increased slightly between
56 1991 and 2001 (from 7 per cent to 9 per cent amongst Pakistani; from 8 per cent to 9 per cent amongst Bangladeshi; from 5 to 6 per cent amongst Indians) (Dobbs et al., 2006, p.90).
As summarised by Table 3.1, in 2001 Muslim households had the largest family size with an average of 3.8 family members compared to 2.3 in Christian, Jewish and Buddhist households (ONS, 2006, p.93-94).
Table 3.1: Average of household size by religion
People per household
Christian 2.3 Buddhist 2.3 Hindu 3.2 Jewish 2.3 Muslim 3.8 Sikh 3.6
Any other religion 2.2
No religion 2.4
Not stated 2.2
All households 2.4
Source: Census, April 2001, Office for National Statistics N=23,852,721
This pattern was reflected across ethnicity and Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian households had, on average, larger families with 4.5 people per Bangladeshi households, followed by Pakistani (4.1) and Indians (3.3), in contrast with White Irish (2.2), White British and Black Caribbean (both 2.3), which had the smallest families (Dobbs et al., 2006, p.92-93). A combination of cultural and socio-economic factors explains the larger size of Muslim households. Firstly Muslim households contained a higher number of children in the home: 25 per cent of Muslim households contained three or more dependent children, compared with 14 per cent of Sikh, 7 per cent of Hindu, and 5 per cent of Christian households (Ibid). The higher numbers of children implied the younger age structure of the Muslim population in the UK. The Census indicated that in 2001 Pakistani and Bangladeshi were amongst the youngest groups in the UK. Secondly, Muslim young people are more likely to live longer within their parents’ household and, most often, until they marry. Other cultural practices, such as
57 the oldest son remaining in the parental household with the wife after marriage, also affected the household size (Dobbs et al., 2006).
Intergenerational households
The 2001 Census showed that a higher proportion of Muslims, together with Sikhs and Hindu, were living in extended families compared to other religious groups, which also impacted on the size of the households. Cultural practices such as the requirement for looking after the elderly underlie the higher presence of the extended household type amongst British Muslims.
According to the Census definition, a household ‘contains extended families if contains three or more generations in direct descendent’ (Dobbs et al., 2006, p.95). This is to say that an extended family household will contain children sharing their home with at least one grandparent. In 2001 the proportion of extended family household in England and Wales were pretty low and less than 2 per cent of the households were of this type. However, intergenerational households were particularly present amongst South Asians and amongst Muslim households, which were, after Sikh and Hindu, the most likely to contain extended family households: Sikh 12 per cent; Hindus 9 per cent; and Muslims 8 per cent (Dobbs et al., 2006, p.95).
Muslim households and disadvantage
Research evidence highlights that ethnic minority groups are at higher risk of income poverty and social exclusion (TUC, 2006; JRF, 2007; Platt, 2009). JRF (2007) research, based on data reviews from different national sources, shows that around 40 per cent of people from ethnic minorities are in income poverty, which is twice the rate for white people (Ibid). More specifically the report suggests that the rates of income poverty vary substantially between ethnic groups: Bangladeshi and Pakistani are the two groups with the highest rates (65 per cent and 55 per cent) followed by Black African and Black Caribbean (JRF, 2007, p.5). In contrast, amongst the South Asian groups Indians are doing proportionally much better and are closer to the White British group. The TUC report based on extensive data refers to the policy implications of poverty amongst these groups:
58 ‘The position of people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin is vitally important for all anti-poverty campaigners, because they are far more likely to be poor than any other ethnic group’ (TUC, 2006)
Research focused on explaining differences amongst groups went to investigate the links between poverty and ethnicity. Particularly, a range of complex factors have been identified behind the disadvantage of Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups including their working status; the level of deprivation of the areas where they live; low qualifications; larger average family size. However, TUC report also highlights other social factors including discrimination and Islamophobia as triggering the socio-economic disadvantage of these groups. The internal variance in outcomes amongst South Asian groups, with Indians being relatively much more well off, are generally explained in terms of differences in ‘human capital’ (TUC, 2006).
Household deprivation is a multidimensional factor which comprises disadvantage in household tenure, living in overcrowded accommodation and being subject to higher rates of unemployment (Dobbs et al., 2006), with the higher number of children triggering further the level of deprivation. In 2001 Muslim families were more likely to experience household deprivation as their larger size had implications on different grounds from housing provision, to access to social services, healthcare and labour market.
The Census measures overcrowding as ‘the ratio between the number of rooms in the household compared to the estimated number of rooms’ (Dobbs et al., 2006, p.99). In 2001, 32 per cent of the Muslim households lived in overcrowded accommodation compared to 22 per cent of the Hindu, 19 per cent of the Sikh, 10 per cent of the Buddhist, only 6 per cent of the Jewish and 6 per cent of the Christian households (Dobbs et al., 2006, p.100).
Household tenure is defined ‘as the right or title under which property is held’ (ONS, 2006, p96). The 2001 Census highlighted that Muslim households were amongst the least likely to own their homes followed only by Buddhists: 52 per cent of Muslim and per cent 54 per cent of Buddhist households owned their homes, compared to 70 per cent of Christian; 82 per cent of Sikh and 74 per cent of Hindu households. Muslim households were also the most likely to live in social housing (28 per cent of them) and
59 were much more likely than other religious groups to contain non working adults as shown in the chart below (Dobbs et al., 2006).
Muslims also had the higher rates of unemployment: the unemployment rate among Muslim men was 17 per cent while Buddhist and Sikh men had the next highest unemployment rates of 10 per cent and 9 per cent, whilst Jewish and Christian men had the lowest (5 per cent and 6 per cent) (Dobbs et al., 2006, p.122). As shown in the table below unemployment tends to be higher for women than men across all different ethnic and religious groups. As Muslims were the group most likely to be unemployed3, Muslim women were much more likely than women from any other religious group to be unemployed: 18 per cent of the Muslim women in 2001 were unemployed compared to only 4 per cent of Jewish and Christian women (Dobbs et al., 2006, p.122). Amongst the ethnic groups, Bangladeshi women were the most likely to be unemployed (22 per cent) followed by Pakistani women (18 per cent) while only 7 per cent of Indian women and 4 per cent of White British women were unemployed (Ibid). Table 3.2 Unemployment rates: by ethnic group and sex, April 2001
Men Women
Other Black 21.36 14.21
Mixed White and Black Caribbean
18.72 13.33
Bangladeshi 18.60 22.13
Black African 18.48 16.20
Black Caribbean 16.62 9.52
Mixed White and Black African 16.54 12.52
Pakistani 16.21 18.31
Other Mixed 12.68 9.74
Mixed White and Asian 11.09 8.16
Other Asian 10.42 10.01 Chinese 7.81 7.70 Indian 7.42 7.48 Other White 7.35 6.51 White Irish 7.10 4.49 White British 5.76 4.19
Other ethnic group 12.50 9.12
All people 13421207 10886677
Source: Census, April 2001, Office for National Statistics
3 Muslims’ unemployment rates among were more than double those in other groups (ONS, 2006,
60