White children in British schools could become a “declining minority” by 2060 as sky-high immigration continues to irreversibly change the racial demographic across the U.K., a leading Oxford demographer has claimed.
Dr. Paul Morland, a leading demographer at Oxford University, suggested that, in line with previous research on changing U.K. demographics, it is highly likely urban areas and young children would comprise a majority of people currently referred to as ethnic minorities.
“In terms of the speed of the decline, there was work done by demographers at Oxford and other work more recently that looks at 2060, where we’ll have perhaps 50-60 percent of people defining themselves as White British,” the Oxford academic told The Telegraph newspaper.
“But of course at that point, if you look at the primary school or the school-age folk or the people in the large cities, it would be a minority and a declining minority,” he added.
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Combined with a decreasing birth rate, Dr. Morland believes the U.K. will continue to welcome mass levels of immigration from non-EU countries. Immigration from the European Union will decrease in part due to the restrictions on free movement following Brexit, but also due to the rise in living standards in countries like Poland where a large number of migrants fled to Britain in the early to late 2000s.
India and Pakistan sandwich Poland as the three most common non-U.K. countries of birth for migrants coming to Britain, although Polish arrivals are starting to decline.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures published in November last year revealed that one in six residents of England and Wales were born outside the U.K., around 10 million people. Additionally, 2021 census data published last year revealed that England’s two largest cities of London and Birmingham, as well as Leicester, are now minority White British.
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Dr. Morland’s findings are consistent with a previous decade-old report by fellow Oxford academic, Prof. David Coleman, who estimated back in his 2010 report that White British people will be a minority in their own country by 2066 if current immigration levels continue. He also estimated that by 2056, around half of the 0-4 age group would comprise ethnic majorities.
Prof. Coleman, who subsequently founded the think tank and campaign group Migration Watch UK with Lord Green of Deddington, wrote in 2010:
The ethnic minority populations in the UK are growing substantially through immigration, a youthful age structure, and in some cases relatively high fertility. Their diverse demographic and socioeconomic characteristics have attracted considerable academic and policy attention, especially insofar as those distinctive characteristics have persisted in the generations born in the UK. No official projections of the UK ethnic populations have been published since 1979. This article provides projections to 2056 and beyond of 12 ethnic groups. Given overall net immigration and vital rates as assumed in the office for National Statistics 2008-based Principal Projection, and the ethnic characteristics estimated here, the ethnic minority populations (including the Other White) would increase from 13 percent of the UK population in 2006 to 28 percent by 2031 and 44 percent by 2056, and to about half the 0–4 age group in 2056.
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Immigration, however, hasn’t remained at the same levels as in 2010. In fact, the governing Conservative Party has overseen record levels of mass immigration into Britain since coming to power in the same year, and leading experts predict soon-to-be published ONS data will show net migration into Britain this year rising to between 650,000 and 1 million — far above the previous peak of 504,000 recorded in June last year.
Such an increase in population not only has a cultural impact on the existing society and leads to potential problems with integration. It also exacerbates issues such as housing demand and supply, hospital waiting lists, school places, public transport and infrastructure if funding lags behind the surge in numbers.
