SCHOOL OF THOUGHT
HOW do you spend your Sundays? Coaxing the children away from their Xboxes to go on a family walk, watching a sports match or browsing through newspapers over coffee? We all have our routines, even in these strange pandemic times.
But many of us will have spent yesterday filling in the latest national census. The survey happens every 10 years and is an official count of every household in the country. Overseen by the Office for National Statistics, it covers topics such as age, race, occupation and relationship status.
There’s been a debate over whether the 2021 census should have gone ahead, bearing in mind coronavirus is likely to distort the picture. Scotland has already delayed its survey until next year for this reason.
Danny Dorling, professor of geography at the University of Oxford, points out there will be ‘young adults temporarily ensconced in parents’ homes’ and unusually low levels of street homelessness. Furloughed workers on the cusp of redundancy will also count as employed.
But he believes the latest data will also give us a fascinating insight into pandemic Britain. It’s a very different place to the one we lived through in 2011.
By chance, there’s a question relating to homeworking. As we fled our offices during the first lockdown, few of us doubted we would return. Yet a year on, many of us are still poised over work laptops in our homes. If that trend becomes permanent, it could have major implications for town centres as so many shops and cafes rely on the lunch-hour trade. The pandemic has triggered some quite seismic changes.
The results are also likely to reflect major population shifts, particularly in London. Official statistics have already shown there were nearly a million fewer non-uk-born residents living here at the end of 2020 than in 2019. That’s much less to do with Brexit than Covid-19.
Many migrants were working in the worst-affected sectors, such as hospitality, and chose to return home to seek better prospects. As census returns drive decisions about public investment – such as where to build new schools, hospitals and roads - that’s going to have significant knock-on effects.
This year marks the first census to have primarily been filled in on online. Also new in 2021 is a question asking us if we’ve ever been a member of the Armed Forces. That will help the authorities to track some of the challenges facing veterans.
And there’s a new voluntary question about gender identity, which has already attracted a legal challenge. It asks us if we identify as a different sex to the one we were registered with at birth.
Looking back over previous national censuses, they’ve often reflected issues of their times. Back in 1851, public health and sanitation became a feature. By 1991, ethnicity had been added to the census. And in 2001, questions were introduced about religion.
We can see different trends at local authority level too. In 2011, Staffordshire Moorlands was the third ‘whitest’ place in England and Wales, with 97.5 per cent of its population classed as ‘white British’. Stokeon-trent also stood out nationally as it had the sixth highest proportion of people without any qualifications.
Yet with swarms of data now surrounding our daily movements, it’s tempting to see the national census as an anachronism.
Censuses can also be used for political ends. Take the school census, carried out several times a year. A row has blown up over the Government’s decision to base its ‘pupil premium’ funding on the October census rather than figures collected in January. It has excluded substantial numbers of children newly eligible for free school meals after their parents lost their jobs.
Statistical snapshots can reveal - and hide - so much.