It would be weird if a political sociologist in N.Ireland didn't have something to say about the #NIcensus2021 results released today, wouldn't it?!
& a pity if there weren't slides to go along with those comments...
So, here we are, a thread of nine.
1/9
nisra.gov.uk/publications/c…
NI population is up, more households with fewer people in each (2.44 ave).
There is more ethnic and language diversity than before but, oh my, it's still not very much.
2/9
"How would you describe your national identity" - a comparison here between 2011 & 2021.
A drop in British only (down 8 percentage points), and a rise in Irish only (up by 4 % points).
3/9
People can tick more than one box (hence the 'hybrid') so when we put these figures together, we can see a pattern of how they mix together (e.g. British + Irish, or Irish + N.Irish, etc.)
4/9
More people now hold more than one #passport.
🛂
The decline by 10% points in those holding only UK 🇬🇧passports is striking, as is the rise by 8% points on those with only Irish 🇮🇪 passports.
But still over half passport holders in NI hold a UK passport.
5/9
But now to the headline-grabbing results...
#Religion
In most countries, census results on religion usually get attention for incr. secularisation (👋🇦🇺, 🇮🇪).
In NI today it is because fact Catholics are now in the plurality in a region designed for a Protestant majority.
6/9
Perhaps this is the most interesting trend in terms of religion: the change in between how people are brought up and then how they choose to identify now.
TL;DR Protestants are slightly more likely to 'lose their religion'.
7/9
Now for a couple of 'bear these things in mind' tweets - namely, don't conflate complicated categories.
Drawing on the NI Life&Times Survey data...
Around 2/3 of Catholics self-describe as nationalist and 2/3 Protestants self-describe as unionist.
8/9
Finally, & still on the 'it's a bit more complicated than that' theme, #NILT data on border poll voting...
Notably, the proportion of Catholics saying they wd vote for a Utd Ireland tomorrow rose from 56% in 2019 to 66% in 2021, & doubled from 17% to 34% among 'No Religion'.
9/9
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