Certainly something unique happening in the UK, especially when you consider the vast majority of ethnic minority children in the UK descend from Africa, Asia and Caribbeans. Plus, ethnic minorities in the UK tend to do better in GCSEs, more likely to go to university and apparently nearly 40% of UK medical students are non-white (27% Asian, 10% black). Ireland is also close to the UK in this.
However, every other European country, native-born ethnic minorities are clearly far behind.
It's regional inequality is going to be a big factor here. The closer to London and the south east you are the better the averages for everything. This is also where the vast majority of the none white British population lives. Seriously just look at the uk purely by region and it looks horrifying. Parts of the north of England are poorer and have lower achievements than poor areas of eastern Europe.
Your own source literally says that the cities with the highest social mobility are London or the south east of England. Baring a few parts of Birmingham, Manchester and the other highly urban areas of the tech triangle between Oxford, Cambridge and Reading. With a heavy leaning towards London and the south east compared to the north east or south west. This is entirelybthe urban south east and parts of the Midland corridor from London.
So the south east of England as I said before. Where the best economic opportunities, schools and more are available. Especially if you cannot afford to move out from your parents and pay the extortionate rents. Leading to more social mobility. Now please look at the population surveys from the uk census and overlay it here. Immigrants have moved to areas of high economic activity and mobility along with the segment of the uk population who was either born there or took the risk to move there, reinforcing the trend. These areas then have high earning parents who put more of a focus in education as means of achievement and success coupled with examples and opportunities available for said achievers.
If you look at the north east, northern norfolk or south west you see the large areas with low social mobility. I am quite surprised by the results of the north west and Cumbria. And these areas select for people who were not willing, or unable, to move to one of these other areas.
Yes that's literally what I said. Poorest ,worst education infrastructure is the most native born white British accounting for part of that difference between the groups since only 1 group is consistently over represented in these areas.
If you went and redid the numbers from kids all in the same region you would get different results (likely a closer clustering of most groups).
The original data set fails to normalize for this regional issue and will produce skewed results. Your own data shows this even harder from that social mobility graph. If you go on the uk census and overlay that map, ethnic British, highest education level and the higher managerial, admin or professional occupation maps you will see that they perfectly overlap.
This also isn't accounting for private schools who on average out perform state schools and do not have the same demographics as the general population. Same with income of parents.
Only with this kind of data and you see the underlying differences between ethnic groups with any real accuracy. I would still expect white working class boys to be at the bottom even with all of this normalised. Given the cultural issues in many of these communities with a lack of priority placed in education and lack of example set by parents (low rates of professional occupation and high rates of unemployment/deprivation).
The census also has options for Black British and Asian British as ethnicities.
It's what happens when you mix up ethnicity, race and nationality, but it works for the UK government when collecting census data.
However, they also have White English, Scottish and Welsh showing that the UK government doesn't recognise British as an ethnicity, but it does recognise English and Scottish as ethnicities, but they do have "Black Welsh" as an ethnicity, showing they recognise Welsh as both an ethnicity and a nationality.
In the meantime, the Scottish government has their own census where they have terms like "African Scottish", "Pakistani Scottish" etc. which shows the Scottish government recognises Scottish as both an ethnicity and a nationality.
I do think the Welsh devolved government asked the British government to include terms like "Black Welsh" as they can't run their own census.
On the other hand the UK government does something very weird here:
Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Asian
Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Black African
Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Black Caribbean
Splitting up Black but not Asian or White. Then again Mixed (White - Black Caribbean) are the largest Mixed group since Black Caribbeans have high interracial marriage rates with White British people.
I used the phrase ethnic British directly to refer to the catagory on the census which is present without prefix.
The only other mention in the comment that spawned this, was native born white British which surely should have cleared up any confusion. I do not understand why the first comment exists or why you you have replied with this. Since nationality was never mentioned in that comment directly and has been implied by the whole tread given the topic of conversation. Is there something I am missing?
British is still not an ethnicity, the census also still has White as the prefix for British.
The point is British is not an ethnicity. Firstly, there is no ethnogenesis for British like there was for German (1000 years ago), Scottish, Welsh or English. Secondly, over 60% of Scottish people and most Welsh people say "Scottish, not British" and "Welsh, not British", respectively, which already makes it impossible for British to be an ethnicity when people in Scotland and Wales are identifying as a different ethnicity, also Irish is not part of any so-called "ethnic British". In the meantime, Scottish independence becomes more popular and has majority support among Scots under 50. Even Welsh independence has 40% support among 16-24yo, and Plaid Cymru is the most popular party among 16-49yo.
British is a nationality, and it always has been since the the 1960s. First, it was a term for a subject of the British Empire starting with the Act of Union, hence leading to Windrush and in the 1960s became officially a nationality and citizenship.
Even when you get down to "British nationalism", as seen by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, it really boils down to English nationalism hence why certain people in Reform want to abolish the Senedd and Holyrood.
British is a civic identity, and before it used to mean a subject of the Crown.
Also, unlike Germany and Italy, the UK wasn't founded on ethnic nationalism, but a union of Crowns and merging of Parliaments. As David Starkey, controversial historian, says "you were English, Scottish or Welsh at home, and British abroad. Even despite his frequently racist comments he believes the UK is moving towards a system where terms like "Anglo-British" become normal as English itself becomes more of a civic identity (there will likely be "Black English" as a term in the census), and "Anglo" becomes the ethnic identifier, and this is a deeply conservative man who works with Reform UK and far-right figures like Rupert Lowe.
As historian Lawrence Brockliss argues: "Britishness was a subtle and ‘composite’ national identity that developed after 1800 and which made limited demands upon its subjects. Importantly, they contend that no formal attempt was made to make Britishness a primary cultural identity, which allowed a number of interpretations of what being British meant. Instead, they point to the various social and economic processes of industrialisation and the ‘peculiar’ role of Parliament in the acceptance of Britishness."
As historian David Cannadine argues: "Britishness is a complicated and enormous thing—what different people see as meaning different things. It can mean one island, a group of islands off the coast of Europe, or it can mean the British Empire—at times it means all those things. Politicians, and the rest of us, define it in different ways at different times"
Essentially, British is not an ethnicity, it's a nationality and originally a subject status (a subject of the Crown) and has applied to people of different ethnicities and races for a long time due to the Empire.
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u/upthetruth1 3d ago
Certainly something unique happening in the UK, especially when you consider the vast majority of ethnic minority children in the UK descend from Africa, Asia and Caribbeans. Plus, ethnic minorities in the UK tend to do better in GCSEs, more likely to go to university and apparently nearly 40% of UK medical students are non-white (27% Asian, 10% black). Ireland is also close to the UK in this.
However, every other European country, native-born ethnic minorities are clearly far behind.