A "retreat" of white Britons from areas where minorities live is limiting cultural integration, research by think-tank Demos says.
Analysis of Census 2011 figures show 45% of ethnic minorities in England and Wales live in areas where less than half the population is white British, while 41% live in wards that are less than half white.
Trevor Phillips, former chairman of the Equalities Commission and Demos Associate, said white Britons choosing not to live in minority-dominated areas "ought to make us a little anxious".
He said: "This research shows a welcome minority advance into areas previously only the preserve of the white majority. What ought to make us a little anxious is the 'majority retreat' – white people leaving minority-led areas and not being replaced – which isn't good for integration."
The 4.1 million ethnic minorities who now live in white minority areas is a significant increase from the 2001 Census, when only around one million minority Britons lived in such wards.
Demos said: "Researchers attribute this mainly to white British people choosing not to move to minority-dominated areas
"Departing white British are replaced by immigration or by the natural growth of the minority population. The end result of this process is a spiral of white British demographic decline."
However, integration between ethnic minorities is more common than in 2001. Demos said minority white areas were generally multi-minority, since new minorities such as Somalis have taken up housing vacated by established minorities.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article