The 2021 Census has revealed that people who identify themselves as Anglo Indian, white Irish or white Maltese are among the ethnic groups with the oldest average age in England and Wales. But people identifying as of mixed South Asian or mixed Pakistani or British Pakistani heritage, are with the lowest averages, at below 18 years.
Latest information from Census 2021 on the sex and age characteristics of ethnic groups has been published this week with details and how this has changed since 2011 in England and Wales.
In 2021, the average (median) age across the 19 tick-box ethnic groups ranged from 16 years for the “Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Asian” and “Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Black African” to 54 years for people who identified as “White: Irish”.
Nearly a third (32.1%) of those who identified their ethnic group as “White: Irish” were aged 65 years and over, this compared with nearly a fifth (18.6%) of the overall population in England and Wales who were aged 65 years and over.
More than half a million (507,465) people identified as white Irish, with a median age of 54 years, one of the highest for any groups.
Nearly half of those who identified as “White and Asian” (48.1%) and “White and Black African” (48.6%), within the “Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups”, were aged 0 to 15 years, substantially higher than 18.5% of the overall population of England and Wales who were aged 0 to 15 years.
Top of the list are people from the “Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh: Anglo Indian” group, comprising 2,070 residents whose median age is 65 years.
The highest percentage of males was seen in the “White: Roma” ethnic group (55.4%), this compares with 49.0% of the overall population who were male.
The highest percentage of females was seen in the “Asian, Asian British, Asian Welsh: Chinese” ethnic group (55.2%), this compares with 51.0% of the overall population who were female.
Through the write-in functionality of the ethnic group question, it has been possible to provide average (median) ages for 287 ethnic groups which ranged from 6 years for the 2,000 people who identified as “Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: Mixed South Asian” to 65 years for the 2,070 people who identified as “Asian, Asian British or Asian Welsh: Anglo Indian”.
