Religion, spirituality and belief: Ethnicity

Religion, like ethnicity (see our ScotPHO Ethnicity section), may influence health-related behaviours and beliefs, and gender roles, and there are associations between ethnicity and religion. ScotPHO quotes Bhopal’s definition of ethnicity, which makes reference to religion:

"the social group a person belongs to, and either identifies with or is identified with by others, as a result of a mix of cultural and other factors including language, diet, religion, ancestry and physical features traditionally associated with race". (Bhopal, 2004 (133KB))

Data and breakdowns of ethnicity by religion are available from Scotland’s Census Data Explorer. Census data showed a strong patterning of religion by ethnic group in Scotland, which suggests that analyses of the effects of religion need to adjust for ethnicity, among other factors:

• Almost 40% of Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British people reported being Muslim.
• 45% of people with mixed or multiple ethnic groups reported having no religion – this was the highest proportion of no religion amongst any ethnic group.
• Amongst those with African ethnicity, 40% reported Other Christian as their religion, and 7% reported no religion.
• Church of Scotland was the most common religion (aside from no religion) amongst the white population. Amongst those with White Scottish ethnicity, just over 37% report Church of Scotland as their religion, while over 67% of White Irish people reported being Roman Catholic.
• 64% of people who recorded their ethnicity as Other ethnic group, reported their religion as Muslim.

An equality report from the 2011 census, Analysis of Equality results from the 2011 census Part 2 (2015), contains demographic information about religious and ethnic groups’ employment patterns, social class, education, housing and transport.

The Scottish Surveys Core Questions (SSCQ) pools together responses to core questions across three of Scotland’s national surveys. The large sample size enables reliable analysis of key national indicators by different population subgroups, including religion. The survey provides a breakdown of religion by a number of demographic indicators, including ethnicity.

Further information from a variety of sources, including the Census, can be found for religion and other protected characteristics at the Scottish Government’s Equality Evidence Finder.