A comment with new analysis on an Financial Times article talking about the possibility of White Flight from London revealed by the 2011 UK Census results.

1. ‘White Flight’ from London?
(from http://www.social-statistics.org/?p=864)
One of the interesting results from the 2011 Census is that London no longer contains
a majority White British residential population, now having only 44.9% of its
population classified as White British. That is a 14.9 percentage point decrease from
the 59.8% of 2001. Of the 10 Government Regions in England and Wales, London is
the only one not to be majority White British. Indeed, it is the only one to be less than
75% White British (the West Midlands comes next at 79.2% White British).
The map below gives some idea of how different London is. It is not the only region
to contain local authorities that are not majority White British. Neither is it the case
that all authorities within London are so. However, 70% of the London Boroughs are
not majority White British. The only other local authorities that are not majority
White British are Leicester in the East Midlands, Luton in the East, and Slough in the
South East. London is unusual.
Figure 1. The proportion of the population that are classified as
White British in the 2011 Census by local authorities
The change has led some to speculate that there has been ‘white flight’ from London
(see article in the Financial Times, http://on.ft.com/XQekN4). Certainly we observe a
stark pattern if we map the local authorities in and around London and classify them
according to whether their White British population in 2011 is greater or less than it

2. was in 2001 in terms of the actual number of people living there. London and all the
surrounding counties except Kent and Essex have fewer White British people living
in them by 2011. An outer ring of counties has seen its White British population grow
(but only in absolute terms; in all cases the proportion of the population that is White
British has shrunk).
Figure 2. Showing the places in and around London where the (absolute) number
of White British residents has increased or decreased.
The nature of the change can also be witnessed by calculating the index of
unevenness (see http://www.social-statistics.org/?p=847) for each of the main ethnic
groups. The index gives the proportion of the group that would have to move from
one local authority to another to create an even distribution of the group across the
region shown in the map. It is a measure of clustering. However, the index does not
consider how far people from the group would have to travel to create an even
distribution. The index of redistribution does do that – it is how far, in kilometres, an
average person from the group would have to travel to create an even distribution
across the study region. Both indices are shown in Table 1.

3. Ethnic group Unevenness Index Change from 2001 Redistribution Index Change from 2001
White 0.14 +0.04 8.49 +2.74
Indian 0.42 -0.06 22.8 -3.61
Pakistani 0.51 -0.01 23.1 -1.04
Bangladeshi 0.58 -0.03 29.4 -3.19
Black African 0.45 -0.13 26.5 -7.73
Black Caribbean 0.51 -0.06 28.8 -2.52
Table 1. Indices of unevenness and redistribution and their change from 2001.
From the index values we find that the White British population is the least unevenly
distributed. That is hardly surprising given that is the most dominant group and given
the clear spatial clustering of the other ethnic groups (see http://www.social-
statistics.org/?p=836). However, it is also the only one of the six ethnic groups
becoming more unevenly distributed; because of the shift of the population to the
outer regions further away from London (but also because if its decreased share of the
total population). In 2001 the local authorities shaded dark green in the map contained
51% of the White British population in the study region. By 2011 the percentage had
risen to 54%.
What also is notable is that the greatest decreases in the White British population tend
to occur in those local authorities that already had the lowest proportions of the group
in 2001 (where the decrease is measured as a proportional change relative to the 2001
White British population). In other words, there has been a greater reduction in the
White British population in those places that the group were already less dominant.
This is shown below.
So is what we are seeing ‘white flight’?
Well, I’m not sure I’d describe it in such potentially emotive terms but it’s hard to
escape the conclusion that there has been a redistribution of the White British
population away from London. Quite what the reasons for that might be remain to be
discovered.
(c) Richard Harris, 2013. The calculations and analysis are presented in good faith but
no liability is accepted as a consequence of any unintended errors or mistakes.
Updated Jan. 12th.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
nd/3.0/deed.en_US for terms and conditions.

4. Figure 2. Showing the proportional change in the White British population (2011 –
2001) for local authorities in the study region and how that relates to their White
British population in 2001.