Population Dynamics: The Roles of Natural Change and Migration in Producing the Ethnic Mosaic

Abstract

This paper builds on an emerging literature that focuses on processes of population change as a means of understanding geographies of ethnicity. It argues that persistent assumptions of segregation being the result of divisive separation of ethnic groups are mistaken. The paper takes a demographic approach, presenting analyses of original estimates of natural change and net migration for eight ethnic groups in Britain over the period 1991Á2001, at national and district levels. Major results are the greater significance of natural change than migration for minority ethnic population change, and the accordance of population dynamics with theories of counter-urbanisation and dispersal from areas of minority ethnic concentration. The importance of natural change is illustrated through the presentation of its effects on the index of isolation. The paper concludes that ethnic group population change in Britain can to a large extent be explained by benign and unexceptional demographic processes and ethnically undifferentiated migration patterns.

How Spatial Segregation Changes over Time: Sorting Out the Sorting Processes

“…This explores the extent to which ethnic segregation is produced by the actions of minority or majority groups: the "white flight" and "white avoidance" literature (Clark 1992). Another strand, however, has aimed to decompose changes in ethnic concentrations between two processes: migration and natural change (Simpson, 2004;Finney and Simpson 2009;Musterd and De Vos, 2007). For the locations examined, these studies show that rises in minority ethnic concentrations are the result of two opposing processes -higher levels of natural growth by minority ethnic groups than the White majority in areas of existing concentration, offset by net out-migration of minority ethnic households from these areas.…”

Understanding Neighbourhood Population Dynamics for Neighbourhood Effects Research: A Review of Recent Evidence and Data Source Developments

“…The sorting and re-sorting of people across space gives rise to segregation and, in turn, to the possibility of neighbourhood effects. Many studies portray selective migration as the only factor giving rise to segregation but there is growing recognition of a wider range of processes at work (Finney and Simpson 2009 ;Bailey 2012 ) . Understanding the relative contribution of selective migration and other processes to changes in segregation may aid our understanding of how neighbourhood effects operate.…”

The Inner Geographies of a Migrant Gateway: Mapping the Built Environment and the Dynamics of Caribbean Mobility in Manchester, 1951–2011

“…The statistical construction and deconstruction of the British "ghetto" has been the subject of intensifying academic and policy examination over the past two decades, which has yielded a substantial body of quantitative (Finney andSimpson 2009a, 2009b;Johnson et al 2005;Mateos et al 2009;Peach 2009;Simpson 2007) and qualitative (Phillips 2007;Phillips et al 2007;Slater and Anderson 2012) research, however, approaches to the study of segregation that seek to marry these perspectives remain elusive. For many cultural geographers, statistical analysis of migrant residence are too blunt an instrument to understand the vagaries of the housing market (Bolt et al 2010: 170;Phillips et al 2007: 218) and thus scholarship has largely followed parallel modus operandi.…”