The Role of Age in Shaping Neighbourhood Ethnic Diversity

Momoko Nishikido , Queen's University Belfast
Mark Ellis, University of Washington, Seattle
Gemma Catney, Queens University Belfast
Richard Wright, Dartmouth College

Growing numbers of neighbourhoods in England and Wales are home to a substantial mix of people from different ethnic groups. White dominated neighourhoods, the most common neighbourhood type, are steadily transitioning into areas with higher – and stable – levels of ethnic diversity. Little attention has been paid to the relationships between neighbourhood transitions and from the age profiles of their residents. Concentrating on White spaces, which are undergoing important shifts in their composition, we aim to understand how their changing age structures fuel neighbourhood transitions. We use Lower Layer Super Output level Census data for 2001, 2011 and 2021, and explore the age profiles of different ethnic groups within low-diversity White and moderate-diversity White neighbourhoods. We define these spaces using a schema that accounts for diversity and group dominance. Preliminary results found the White population residing in moderate- and high- diversity neighbourhoods tend to have younger age profiles, compared to low-diversity neighbourhoods. While all neighbourhood types aged, with an increasing proportion of older adults, low-diversity neighbourhoods remain relatively older. In addition, White dominated neighbourhoods that transitioned into more ethnically diverse areas between 2011 and 2021 had younger age profiles in 2011, when compared to White dominated neighbourhoods that did not become more ethnically diverse. Overall, these findings suggest that the changing proportion of younger White groups, such as young adults, may have some influence on the increase and spread of ethnic diversity across neighbourhoods in England and Wales.

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 Presented in Session P2. Health, Mortality, Ageing - Aperitivo