| descriptiongeneral | The 2001 question on ethnic group in the census was more detailed than in 1991 when a question on ethnic group was first asked.
There were 5 sections for ethnic group on the England and Wales Census form:
1 White
2 Mixed
3 Asian
4 Black
5 Chinese or Other.
Within each section, an individual could tick a box to indicate their cultural background (corresponding to a pre-coded category) , or could tick another box and write in their ethnic group.
The 16-category classification corresponds with the 16 tick boxes within the 5 sections on the Census form:
1
British
Irish
Other White
2
White and Black Caribbean
White and Black African
White and Asian
Other Mixed
3
Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
Other Asian
4
Black Caribbean
Black African
Other Black
5
Chinese
Other Ethnic Group.
Written-in text answers, were assigned codes in the range 01 to 99 which include the 11 codes given to pre-coded tick boxes (ie the ones out of the 16 above which did not have an 'Other...' description).
Individuals are given two ethnic group codes:
A 2-digit classification, with values in the range 1-16 corresponding to the 16-category groups above.
A 3-digit classification of which the first digit, in range 1-9, indicates which box(es) and/or fields were filled in on the form. The second and third characters of this code are in the range 1-99 and are derived from the text entered or the description in the tick box response.
The 2-digit code can be collapsed into 5, as shown in the groupings above. |
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