Christian Population Of England And Wales Drops Below Half For First Time In Census

While the number of people following Islam has increased from 4.9 per cent to 6.5 per cent, the number of Hindu residents have also multiplied

The white population of England and Wales has shrunk in the last decade. According to the Office for National Statistics - UK's largest independent producer of official statistics, 81.7 per cent of residents in England and Wales identified their ethnic group as white on Tuesday, the day of the 2021 census, which is down from 86.0 per cent a decade earlier, reported The Independent.

"Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh" emerged as the second most common ethnic group at 9.3 per cent, up from 7.5 per cent in 2011.

"Today’s data highlights the increasingly multi-cultural society we live in," Jon Wroth-Smith, Census Deputy Director was quoted as saying by The Independent after the release of the data.

It is also for the first time in a census of England and Wales that less than half of the population, 46.2 per cent, have described themselves as "Christian". This is a 13.1 percentage point decrease from 2011.

While the number of people following Islam has increased from 4.9 per cent to 6.5 per cent, the number of Hindu residents have also multiplied and is now 1.7 per cent compared to 1.5 per cent in the last census.

Interestingly, 37.2% of people – 22.2 million – declared they had "no religion", which was the second most common response. The increase in the proportion of people reporting no religion has risen by 12.0 percentage points in the last decade, according to the census.

“We have left behind the era when many people almost automatically identified as Christian but other surveys consistently show how the same people still seek spiritual truth and wisdom and a set of values to live by,” responded the archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell after the release of the census, reported The Independent.

London remains England's most religiously diverse region, with 25.3 per cent people reporting a religion other than Christianity. While South-west England is the least religiously diverse with only 3.2 per cent selecting a religion other than Christianity.

According to the census, Leicester and Birmingham have become the first UK cities to have "minority majorities," reported The Guardian.