Talk:Demographics of the United Kingdom

Child mortality in London, 18th & 19th C

This article says: During the Industrial Revolution, child mortality decreased dramatically. The proportion of children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5 per thousand in 1730–1749 to 31.8 per thousand in 1810–1829. This means that the child mortality rate in the early 18th C was 7.45%, and in the early 19th C, it was 3.18%. These figures seem extraordinary low. I don’t have access to the source given, which is a book.

In an article ‘Urbanization and Mortality in Britain, c. 1800-50.’ by Romola J Davenport, in The Economic History Review [1] , it says: “In London infant mortality was around 300–400 deaths per 1,000 births in the mid-eighteenth century, compared with the national average of c. 180 per 1,000.” i.e. in the 18th C infant mortality in London was around 30-40%. This seems more likely than the figure of 7.45% currently given in the article (which is in fact for children up to the age of 5, rather than in the first year of life). The Davenport article also says: “this study finds good evidence for widespread increases in mortality in the second quarter of the nineteenth century” which contradicts the statement in our article: “During the Industrial Revolution, child mortality decreased dramatically”.

Any comments? Sweet6970 (talk) 12:30, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus to merge. I am redirecting Countries of the United Kingdom by population to the new subsection heading Population by constituent country. The main additional information in the source is the division of English figures by region; I will leave it to local editors to include that in the table here if desired.

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Proposing to merge Countries of the United Kingdom by population, no need for such a short article on the population of the different countries of the UK when 1; we already cover it here 2; the two topics overlap massively and the table used on that page can be combined here so the two should be merged - Tweedledumb2 (talk) 18:33, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

support. The creator of the stub was possibly unaware of this article, DMBanks1 (talk) 17:44, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Support, the table can be merged incorporated into the existing article. N1TH Music (talk) 13:02, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Oppose they're separated for a reason. Great Mercian (talk) 10:29, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

But for what reason is there to keep the two separated? Again, you can find practically the same data here under the 'Population distribution across the country' table in the first section of Population currently so I don't really see the point of keeping a separate stub when a redirect to that particular section can be provided instead. Tweedle (talk) 22:29, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm more concerned of whether or not the populations of each individual country in a specific year (I.e. Population of England in 1989) will be preserved. Great Mercian (talk) 17:48, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

This is already preserved in each countries individual demographics page under 'Vital Statistics', see here for each; England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. The article I am requesting to merge with this one here does not cover this. Tweedle (talk) 20:24, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Support, I feel like this article could just be a new section near to the bottom of the page. 你好... (Community Centre) 01:44, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit

User:Tweedledumb2, what do you mean by "messing up the net change graph"? Also, the article is now way too linked again. See MOSLINK. Tony (talk) 00:20, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

The vast majority of wikilink removals are fine and I have no problem with but for the pie charts please keep in the wiki-links as some you just removed England or the United Kingdom (especially the one in the lead infobox) but not the other's alongside it as well like Scotland Wales etc. I will go and change these to their respective demography pages links so they hopefully don't flag up again in the script to be removed. On the net change graph, its the graph which shows natural change overtime, after your edit it looked like this because I believe because the values were changed? I don't know what happened but it messed it up somehow. Tweedle (talk) 10:16, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

That change over time graph is brilliant. Did you construct it? (If so, is it possible to slow it down a bit?) BTW, could someone go through and correct all of the glaringly wrong "overtime"s. Overtime is what you do when you stay back at work. It's "Over time".

The script not surprisingly changes minus values from hyphen to minus sign. If the code forbids the correct typography, that's a problem. Tony (talk) 09:48, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I've replaced "overtime" with "over time" or more often, date ranges, noting that some of the time axes are barely legible. I haven't renamed all the files which use "overtime" in the filename. NebY (talk) 10:14, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I did not construct them no! I believe the graph has been in their for a while but on the script that makes sense, on the files which NebY brings up I have gone ahead and corrected the 'over time' on them as they are my files, apologises on that and my shockingly bad spelling! Tweedle (talk) 11:53, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, editors! Tony (talk) 10:49, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Urban Areas Population Figures

Can someone update the population statistics for some of the urban areas to the stats provided by the ONS? Specifically West Midlands seems way too high. Sargon.solo (talk) 10:13, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

We can't update the population statistics just yet for urban areas as to my knowledge they have not been released yet, however good spot on West Midlands figure, that was incorrect to which I have now corrected. Tweedle (talk) 23:59, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Text based on "Migration Watch"

"Migration Watch" is an organization which openly declares on their homepage that they have a political agenda. That's why they cannot be taken as a reliable source (apart from the fact that their homepage is certainly no peer-reviewed academic journal). So, I deleted the text based on their homepage from Demography_of_the_United_Kingdom#Ethnic_demographic_breakdown. The sentence "For the overwhelming majority of its established history, the United Kingdom has been ethnically homogenous society with few minorities." doesn't look like many Scottish or Welsh people would agree. Rsk6400 (talk) 18:18, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm Scottish. It depends what you would mean by that. If you mean that the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are different peoples to the English I'd agree. I'd also throw in the Cornish, Travelling Folk, certain islanders (Shetland, Manx, Channel Islanders etc) and the longer established Jewish populations perhaps. However, if they are referring to skin colour, then that would be largely true, except possibly in the Roman period, and even that's dubious.-81.154.201.17 (talk) 18:43, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

References

The UK isn't just England and Wales

This article concerns the demography of the United Kingdom. By default, any figures presented here will be seen as being for the whole UK, and moreover even when figures are explicitly for England and Wales only, their inclusion implies even to readers familar with the composition of the UK that those figures are representative of the UK. We will soon have 2021 census figures available for all the countries of the UK. We can wait until then, and as discussed at Talk:United Kingdom#The UK isn't just England and Wales, not present partial figures. NebY (talk) 17:03, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I will re-iterate what I said in my edit summary as I should have brought this up on the UK talk page for that matter but anyway. The ONS for a large amount of statistical data does not collect Scotland or Northern Ireland's data nor does there exist any equivalent data on the National Records of Scotland or NISRA website essentially being that the most complete version of certain stuff will just be England and Wales.

Take for example Percentage of births born to foreign born mothers, on the ONS website for on their births time series, such data exists, but try finding the equivalent on the NRS website or NISRA you will find nothing and this extends to a wide range of stuff where data is just lacking because the ONS (and regional statistic authorities) don't bother to get a full complete picture for the entire country. Regardless though, it's worth bearing in mind that the introduction of statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland in certain circumstances doesn't distort that much of a statistical difference, you are still getting 85% of the population with England and Wales.

To me anyway, using such stuff is not bad and should be used (as long as its denoted that it is for England and Wales) if no such stuff exists on certain topics. Tweedle (talk) 02:17, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

lots of whining no action, it's embarrassing. 2A00:23EE:1CD8:B59F:DF0D:DEB7:9EEB:7BDD (talk) 20:25, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Anglocentrism

The "Before the Census" section is clearly anglocentric and fails to deal with the other three parts of the UK to any significant degree. 81.154.201.17 (talk) 18:40, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Instead of moaning why don't you add a section that expands on the other kingdoms, lack of other information is not Anglo centric the existence of England doesn't automatically make Wales disappear, how insecure are you? 2A00:23EE:1CD8:B59F:DF0D:DEB7:9EEB:7BDD (talk) 20:23, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Incorrect labelling of graph axis

There is an incongruity in the labelling of the x-axis in the graph 'Opposite-sex marriage rates in England and Wales over time'. 146.199.14.211 (talk) 13:51, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Name change?

Shouldnt it be called "Demographics of the United Kingdom" instead of "Demography"? I've never seen another page on a countries demographics called "Demographcy of X" instead of "Demographics of X". 108.28.81.224 (talk) 05:34, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

No, the British English common utilisation is "demography", rather than "demographics". There is a dicusssion before on this here for instance Tweedle (talk) 11:51, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Demography of Belfast which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 02:37, 1 February 2024 (UTC)