Census and Sikhs: England & Wales.

[DailyMail]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20677321

The Sikh population of England & Wales is 0.8% of the total population of England & Wales, which is 56.1 million. Therefore, 448,000 Sikhs reside in England & Wales.

This is a 0.2% increase from 2001, whereby the Sikhs constituted 0.6% of the population of England & Wales.

448,000 Sikhs is significantly lower than the 600-700,000 suggested by certain organistations claiming to represent Sikhs. Whilst I appreciate that this figure doesn't include the Scottish and Northern Ireland Sikh population, I think we can safely assume that the Sikh population of Scotland and Northern Ireland will not sub-total 250,000!

How can we explain the fact the (legal) population of Sikhs has hardly risen in the past decade?

[proactive]

The legal Sikh population of England and Wales has risen from 336,179 in 2001 to 423,158 which is an increase of about 26% in the past decade. Considering that not many illegals would have filled the census forms in then it looks like the increase is either due to both underenumertion in 2001 or a healthy natural increase by birthrate.

[lsingh]

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_290685.pdf

Large increases in the Muslim popoulation to 2.7 million and Hindus to 817,000. Sikhs are shown as 423,000.

The lower Sikh numbers could be due Communist types calling themselves atheists, cult followers like Hindu -Sikhs, conversion to other religions and Non filling in of census.

[UKSikhLion]

The religion section of the census was the only non-mandatory part of the census for 2011. I think it was mandatory in 2001. So the figure of 423,158 would be lower than the actual amount !!

[JagtarSinghKhalsa]

The religion section of the census was the only non-mandatory part of the census for 2011. I think it was mandatory in 2001. So the figure of 423,158 would be lower than the actual amount !!

The religion section of the census was the only non-mandatory part of the census for 2011. I think it was mandatory in 2001. So the figure of 423,158 would be lower than the actual amount !!

The Census 2011 results out yesterday showed some weird results!

Optional religious question

Good news - Sikhs up 26% on 2001 to 423,158.

Also if you allow for the fact that over 30% do not answer this question or say no religion and apply that evenly to each of the faiths – this may imply the number of Sikhs in England and Wales is around 625,000.

But . . .

Hindus up 46% to 816,633 and Muslims up 70% to 2,706,066

Mandatory ethnic question

Results regarding Sikhs are not separately stated, but the number of Asians other is up and the number of Others with a write in option are also up. So this implies Sikhs have registered a protest. More Sikhs may have PROTESTED and written in Sikh under Asian other or other than the 58,000 Gypsies who were given their own tick box.

In the Census 2001 around 11,000 Sikhs registered a protest by using the write in option. Given there was a large publicity campaign by Sikhs for the 2011 Census the number of Sikhs protesting should have increased around five fold. Informal feedback from ONS suggests the protest by Sikhs has been registered.

[West London Singh]

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_290685.pdf

Large increases in the Muslim popoulation to 2.7 million and Hindus to 817,000. Sikhs are shown as 423,000.

The lower Sikh numbers could be due Communist types calling themselves atheists, cult followers like Hindu -Sikhs, conversion to other religions and Non filling in of census.

No. Trouble is we're a pretty ghettoised community. We mostly either live in places such as Heston or Smethwick where we gain the impression that most brown people are Sikhs or we live in places like Gravesend and Southampton where we get the impression that all brown people are Sikhs. The truth, however, is very different. For example, whilst Sikhs have a bit of a majority in just 2 boroughs of west London (Hounslow and Ealing), every borough of north London to north west London is absolutely jam packed with Hindus, and that's not even counting the Tamil Hindus of south London. The Muslims, of course, are dominant in every single borough of east London.

Gives you a good understanding of how the census is probably right.

[DailyMail]

I distinctly remember certain Sikh organisations on the various Sikh media outlets stating that the reason for the low figure in 2001 was because many Sikhs didn't complete that particular component of the form in 2001, therefore implying that the 2001 figure was an underestimate. So it is strange how now some are suggesting that it was mandatory in 2001 and not in 2011 and somehow that will explain why the 2011 figure is an underestimate! It could just be that we don't have 700,000 Sikhs in the UK.

ISingh,

Yes it would appear that that would be the case to some degree. But given the extensive coverage on how to "tick the box" on the Sikh Channel, I feel that some Sikh organisations have significantly overestimated the Sikh population.

[HSD2]

Quality not quantity, people. I still think half a million is a hefty bunch of people considering how big this country is compared to America/Canada.