The impact of international migration on England’s local populations in the first half of the 21st century

Philip H. Rees, University of Leeds
Pia N. Wohland, University of Leeds
Peter Boden, University of Leeds
Paul Norman, University of Leeds

England’s population is one of the fastest growing in Europe. One of the key drivers of this is both past immigration flows in the second half of the 20th century and continuing immigration in the first decade of the 21st. Because immigration and emigration streams have different ethnic compositions and because ethnic groups have different fertility levels, mortality experiences and internal migration patterns, changes in ethnic composition and diversity occur. This paper presents estimates of those ethnic differences for local areas in England (plus Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as single entities) for the past decade. The estimated rates and flows are input, under a varying set of assumptions about the demographic drivers, to produce projected populations for local areas by ethnicity. The results show that England will become a more ethnically diverse though older society.