Talk:United Kingdom Census 2001 Ethnic Codes

Nationality links
Should the links go to the country or the nationality (e.g., should Turkish link to Turkey or Turkish people)? TimBentley (talk) 03:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the links should go to the people where possible - because the codes are in response to the question on ethnicity. This is especially appropriate for Cornish people and English people where there has been much discussion of these codes. May not be appropriate or possible for every ethnicity. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:27, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Fascinating. Like the US Census, I see that in the UK Census "Jewish" is also given a racial value; a "white" racial value. However, unlike the US Census, I see that the UK Census does not categorize Middle Easterners and North Africans as "White".

If I responded only with "Jewish" in the UK census I would be leaglly white. If I responded only with "Iraqi" in the UK census I'd be leaglly non-White. But what if I responded "Iraqi Jew" in the UK census? Legally, what would my racial categorization be?

The legal situation with this non-European Jew (in this case an Iraqi Jew) in the UK is simmilar to the situation of, say, an Indian Jew in America. However, Middle Easterners and North Africans are legally white in the US, and thus this legal contradiction (at least as far as legal whiteness is concered) only occurs in America with Jews that are neither European, Middle Eastern, or North African. In the UK, however, the contradiction already begins with any non-European Jew, from the Moroccan Jew, the Ethiopian Jew, the Iraqi Jew, to the Indian Jew.

Obviously, this contradicting situation was only made possible by the officializing of assumptions, such as in this one, where all Jews are assumed to be of European descent. Al-Andalus 10:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Ethnicity or Religion
Non European Jews aside what of categories 45 (Hindu) 46 (Moslem) 47 (Sikh) looks like the drafters of this (rather bizzare) document seem to have some difficulty distinguishing ethnicity from religion ? What about non-Asian Hindus/Sikhs/Muslims ? Presumably one can be of say "Hindu" ethnicity but Jewish religion ? and then theres "Irish-Travellers" who need not necessairly be Irish at all ! 213.40.226.94 (talk) 17:00, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

This article is unfortunately misleading in that it confuses codes used for the purposes of processing answers to the ethnic group question with 'ethnic groups'. So it's not so much that the people who devised these codes 'have difficulty distinguishing ethnicity and religion' as that people completing the Census form had difficulty. Jonesey86.26.130.183 (talk) 16:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

More precise page name please
There are many countries that had a census in 2001 and many of them coded ethnicity. This page only covers UK. Is it proposed that it be expanded (I think it would be too long). For example, relevant Australian material is at and there are related links. If not tobe expanded could it please have UK or whatever appropriate in the title.--Arktos talk 00:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)