This paper presents a Cultural, Ethnic and Linguistic Output Area Classification for England and Wales built from clustering census variables which pertain to cultural identity. The study provides a quick insight into the broad patterns in ethnic segregation based on the residential geography recorded from the 2011 Census and is therefore a useful tool for supermarket planners seeking to identify areas where to target particular ethnic origin foods. To confirm this association, the classification has also been compared with the total sales of a selection of ethnic origin foods using supermarket customer loyalty data.

1. Creating an Output Area Classification of
Cultural and Ethnic Heritage
to Assist the Planning of Ethnic Origin Foods in
Supermarkets in England and Wales
Guy Lansley
UCL
Yiran Wei
UCL
Tim Rains
J Sainsbury’s
GISRUK 2015
The University of Leeds@GuyLansley

2. Context
• Many minority ethnic and cultural groups in Britain
have distinctive food consumption habits which
emanate from their cultural origins
• The UK is becoming ethnically more diverse due to
migration and variations in fertility rates between
different cultural groups
• Minority groups still have a tendency to residentially
cluster within urban areas
• Understanding where minority groups cluster could be
beneficial for grocery store planners

3. Aim
• Using data from the 2011 Census, this research aims to
identify the major spatial traits in ethnic identity across
the residential geography of England and Wales by
producing a Cultural, Ethnic and Linguistic Output Area
Classification (CELOAC)

4. Defining Ethnicity
• Ethnicity can be an intangible concept
• Definitions can derive from:
• Primordialist theories
• Ethnicity as a physicality from ancestry
• Constructivist theories
• Ethnicity as a social construction
• Instrumental theories
• Ethnicity based on historical & symbolic memory

5. Defining Ethnicity
• Ethnic groups can be considered as distinct
groups of individuals who share a common
identity through:
• kinship
• Religion
• Language
• Location
• Nationality
• Physical similarities from ancestry
Bulmer (1996)

6. What is Ethnicity?
Defining Consistent Ethnic Groups
The Modifiable Ethnic Unit Problem (MEUP)!
OR?
Self-identities spectrum Ethnic Groups
(Courtesy Pablo Mateos, 2011)

7. Uncertainty
• There are various different
measures of CEL groups from
the 2011 Census
• E.g. Ethnicity, Country of Birth,
Language, passports held,
nationality…
• And also from other sources
too
Extract from Longley et al (2015)

8. Clustering in London
The most common country of birth in each Output Area (2011 Census)

9. Data
Census Table Name
QS203EW Country of birth (detailed)
QS204EW Main language (detailed)
QS205EW Proficiency in English
QS208EW Religion
QS211EW Ethnic group (detailed)
QS802EW Age of arrival in the UK
QS803EW Length of residence in the UK
• Variables from 7 ONS Census Quick Statistics tables were
selected for the analysis

10. Methods
• Variables with total populations below
10,000 were aggregated into broader groups
based on their global regions of origin or
removed altogether if they were considered
too distinctive to merge.
• The remaining variables were standardised
and transformed so each variable could be
fairly compared
• Highly correlated or unstable cases were then
identified and removed or aggregated
• 52 variables were clustered using a K-means
clustering algorithm

11. Final Variable Selection
2011 Census Table No of original
variables
No of aggregated
variables
No of final
variables
Country of birth (detailed) 57 49 15
Ethnic group (write-in
responses)
94 40 18
Main language (detailed) 92 20 7
Proficiency in English 5 5 1
Religion 9 8 7
Age of arrival in the UK 17 7 2
Length of residence in the
UK 5
5 2
Total 435 134 52
.

12. K-means Clustering
• K-means is an iterative allocation-reallocation method
where the number of cluster groups (k) is predefined
by the user
• The approach creates distinctive cluster groups by
attempting to minimise the sum of the distances from
each case to their cluster centre based on the variable
distributions.
• An 8 cluster solution was found to hold the best fit
overall
• However, for this analysis two groups which were
predominately White British were merged as the focus
of this paper is on the minority population
• Their main distinction was differences in the percent of
those who identified themselves as Christian

13. Results
A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G
Ethnic Group Country of Birth Proficiency in English
White British Romania Cannot speak English
Irish Other EU accession countries Main language
Pakistani & British Pakistani Ghana French
Bangladeshi & British Bangladeshi Nigeria Russian
Arab Other Central & Western Africa Turkish
Afghan Kenya West or Central Asian Language
Australian & New Zealander Somalia South Asian Language
Baltic Other South & Eastern Africa East Asian Language
Polish Middle East African Language
Sri Lankan China Religion
Other Eastern European Hong Kong Christian
Other Western European Other Southern Asia Buddhist
Greek or Greek Cypriot Philippines Hindu
Black British Other South-East Asia Jewish
Caribbean United States Muslim
South East Asian Length of residence in UK Sikh
African Less than 2 years No religion or not stated
Indian or British Indian 10 years or more
Age of arrival in UK
0 to 4
45 - 64
Below Average Above Average
Label
A Pakistani & Bangladeshi
B Indian & South Asian mix
C Black African & Caribbean
D Non-British White
E Middle Eastern & East Asian
F Mixed
G White British

14. CELOAC and Ethnic Groups
Ethnic Group A B C D E F G
White British 43.29 22.50 33.14 53.73 42.93 72.15 93.01
White Irish 1.21 1.70 1.80 2.82 1.71 1.47 0.64
Other White 4.69 8.62 12.40 20.63 14.24 7.96 2.06
Mixed & multiple 3.43 3.81 6.64 4.88 4.53 3.49 1.30
Indian 9.84 25.14 3.01 2.53 5.55 3.06 0.73
Pakistani 20.23 9.36 2.85 0.78 3.46 1.42 0.34
Bangladeshi 5.87 2.83 3.10 1.10 1.96 0.66 0.14
Chinese 0.66 0.90 1.35 2.09 5.89 1.30 0.30
Other Asian 3.11 10.24 3.92 2.88 5.66 2.49 0.43
Black ethnicities 5.49 10.81 27.80 5.30 7.72 4.60 0.70
Arab 0.84 1.59 1.14 1.35 3.67 0.49 0.10
Other 1.25 2.38 2.69 1.85 2.60 0.77 0.17
The average percentage of ethnic groups by each CELOAC group

15. Mapping CELOAC
• England and Wales A Pakistani & Bangladeshi
B Indian & South Asian Mix
C Black African & Caribbean
D Non-British White
E Middle Eastern & East Asian
F Mixed
G White British
NorthEast
NorthWest
Yorkshire&Humber
WestMidlands
EastMidland
East
SouthEast
SouthWest
London
Wales
EnglandandWales
A 1.27 5.69 7.54 4.61 13.66 2.97 2.59 0.47 3.61 0.49 4.51
B 0.05 0.36 0.14 2.69 1.76 0.45 0.85 0.05 13.55 0.02 2.51
C 0.03 1.15 0.71 0.69 1.45 0.58 0.52 0.57 27.71 0.16 4.45
D 0.01 0.15 0.05 0.02 0.05 0.99 1.30 0.22 19.26 0.03 3.02
E 1.89 1.73 2.07 1.60 1.49 0.83 1.24 0.59 8.51 1.16 2.36
F 3.77 5.84 6.85 10.55 6.62 16.92 18.78 8.07 19.00 4.36 11.38
G 92.98 85.08 82.64 79.83 74.97 77.25 74.72 90.04 8.36 93.78 71.78
Regional Variations

16. Mapping CELOAC
• London
A Pakistani & Bangladeshi
B Indian & South Asian Mix
C Black African & Caribbean
D Non-British White
E Middle Eastern & East Asian
F Mixed
G White British

17. A London Only Classification
A Bangladeshi, African and South-East European
B Indian & South Asian
C Black African & Caribbean
D Non-British White & East Asian
E Middle Eastern
F Mixed
G White British
K = 7

18. Ethnic Origin Food Consumption
• Sainsbury’s provided the number of sales for six pre-
selected grocery products by OA as recorded from their
customer loyalty database
• The data represented the total sales within a 52 week
period commencing in 2011
• Each of the foods were chosen due to their distinctive
cultural heritage with minority groups
• The data was standardised by the total number of food
items sold in each OA from that time period

19. Food Consumption Data
Group
Black Eye
Beans
Chickpeas
Chinese
Leaf
Ghee Halal Ogorki
A: Pakistani and Bangladeshi 215.9 80.99 81.49 250.5 163.2 122
B: Indian and South Asian Mix 472.7 111.2 137.8 601 711.5 312.4
C: Black African and Caribbean 305.8 120.2 131.6 277.2 598.5 286.3
D: Non-British White 218.7 230.3 229.7 216.1 413.4 356.1
E: Middle Eastern & East Asian 202.5 122.7 260.9 229.7 402.4 286
F: Mixed 151.7 136.3 151.4 151.4 109.6 184.5
G: White British 50.4 87.58 78.99 44.77 19.14 49.37
100 = average representation

20. Conclusions
• The CELOAC successfully segmented 2011 Census
Output Areas by cultural, ethnic and linguistic
characteristics
• London, and other major metropolitan areas still contain
higher proportion of ethnic minorities and there are
distinctive segregations between CELOAC groups within
towns and cities
• However, the classification still conceals more intricate
differences within each CELOAC group
• Ethnic origin food consumption was found to vary
between different major cultural groups

21. References
• Bulmer, M. (1996) ‘The ethnic group question in the 1991 Census of
population’ in Coleman, D. and Salt J. (des.) Ethnicity in the 1991 Census.
vol.1 Demographic characteristics of the ethnic minority populations
London: HMSO
• Harris R, Sleight P, Webber R. (2005) Geodemographics: neighbourhood
targeting and GIS. Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons.
• Longley, P.A., M.F. Goodchild, D.J. Maguire, and D.W. Rhind (2015)
Geographic Information Systems and Science. Fourth Edition. New York:
Wiley.
• Mateos, P. (2011) Uncertain segregation: the challenge of defining and
measuring ethnicity in segregation studies, Built Environment, 37 (2) 226-
238
• The Office for National Statistics (2014) 2011 Area Classifications
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/geography/products/area-
classifications/national-statistics-area-classifications/national-statistics-
2011-area-classifications/index.html