One of the first events of the 21st century will be the next Census. There has been a Census of the United Kingdom every ten years since 1801 (except for 1941) and the Census in 2001 will follow the traditional pattern. Under the Census Act of 1920 it will cover every inhabitant of the country, and response is compulsory under penalty of criminal prosecution and a fine of up to £1,000. The plan is outlined in the recent Government White Paper - The 2001 Census of Population (£7.55). The Census will be held on Sunday 25 March 2001. There was a 'test' in June 1997 and there will be a 'rehearsal' in April 1999. The whole thing will cost more than £254 million and involve a staff of 90,000. There will be 'a slight increase in the number of questions', some old areas of inquiry being extended and some new ones added.
The question on 'ethnic group' will be more detailed than in 1991. It is claimed to have 'widespread support', and it will now seek 'additional information about people of mixed origin and sub-groups within the "White" population, particularly the "Irish"'. The resulting categories and sub--categories for England and Wales will be very complex, reflecting the growing influence of political correctness in high places, though they will be simpler for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
There will also be a new question, 'What is your religion?', intended to help with 'identifying ethnic minority sub-groups, particularly those originating from the Indian sub-continent, in terms of their religion' - that is, Muslims and also Hindus and Sikhs. This time the categories will be very simple --- just None, Christian ('including Church of England, Protestant and all other Christian denominations'), Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Other. More complex questions will be asked in Northern Ireland, and none at all in Scotland.
The first problem is whether such a question should be asked at all - it is such a radical departure that it will involve amending the Census Act, and compulsory inquiry into religious affiliation may breach the new Human Rights Act. There have been strong arguments on both sides. The main advocacy comes from Muslims, who resent the fact that religion, especially Islam, doesn't get the same official attention as race, and the main opposition comes from Jews, who object to such questions for obvious reasons, and from unbelievers.
But if such a question should be asked, it would have to be more detailed for any kind of useful information. Christian should be divided between Church of England, Other Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Other; Jewish between Orthodox and Other; and the other denominations as appropriate. And surely None should be divided at least between the traditional categories of Atheist and Agnostic and the increasingly popular one of Humanist, as well as Other.
There is also the problem of how the question will be answered. People in institutions (hospitals, homes, prisons, armed forces) tend to respond according to family background rather than personal belief. Heads of households tend to include all members in their own category, regardless of individual dissent. The usual result is that about 60 percent of the population are labeled Church of England, though only about 6 percent actually belong to it, and that about 12 per cent are labeled Roman Catholic, though most of them have lapsed. It remains to be seen how Muslims and Jews will react.
The truth is that a question about religious identification makes sense only if it is connected to questions about religious background and observance, asking people at the same time which religious denomination they came from (as will be asked in Northern Ireland), which religious denomination they now belong to, and what religious observance they actually practice. After all, it is now an established fact that more than half the population never voluntarily attend any religious service at all, whatever their formal or informal identification.
There may be a relevant comparison with the last time the subject was included in a Census, 150 years ago. The official report -The Census of Great Britain 1851 (1854) - described how it was originally intended to cover 'the accommodation afforded by the various Churches and other places of public religious worship throughout the country, and the number of persons generally frequenting them', but added that it was 'subsequently considered doubtful whether upon a rigid construction, the Census Act rendered it compulsory upon parties to afford information as to Religious Worship'. So instead a voluntary Ecclesiastical Census was held on the same day as the official Census, 30 March 1851.
Volunteers visited more than 30,000 places of worship of more than 30 denominations in Great Britain. The Scottish results were too complex to interpret, but in England and Wales the numbers of people who could attend a service were estimated and the numbers who did attend services were calculated. There was uncertainty about how many people really could attend and about how often they actually did attend, but two certain results were that the Church of England could claim only a very narrow majority of attendants and that only about two-thirds of those who could attend did so. The former was a blow to the established Church and the latter was a blow to religion in general.
The official report - Census of Great Britain, 1851: Religious Worship in England and Wales (1854) - reached 'the conclusion that, upon the Census Sunday, 5,288,294 persons able to attend religious worship once at least, neglected altogether to do so'. It noted that absenteeism was higher in the towns and among what were described as 'the labouring myriads of our country':
It is sadly certain that this vast, intelligent, and growingly important section of our countrymen is thoroughly estranged from our religious institutions in their present aspect. Probably, indeed, the prevalence of infidelity has been exaggerated, if the word be taken in its popular meaning, as implying some degree of intellectual effort and decision, but, no doubt, a great extent of negative, inert indifference prevails, the practical effects of which are much the same.
As it happened, the 1851 Census had stimulated significant developments in the freethought movement. G. J. Holyoake reacted to it by emphasising the public identification of freethinkers, adopting the word Secularism for such identification, and initiating the formation of the first Secular societies. The Census report commented:
There is a sect, originated recently, adherents to a system called Secularism. . . . This is the creed which probably with most exactness indicates the faith which virtually, though not professedly, is entertained by the masses of our working population; by the skilled and unskilled labourer alike - by hosts of minor shopkeepers and Sunday traders - and by miserable denizens of courts and crowded alleys. They are unconscious Secularists - engrossed by the demands, the trials, or the pleasures of the passing hour, and ignorant or careless of a future.
It will be interesting to see how far a similar result emerges from the 2001 Census, however the question is eventually asked and answered, and how many Humanists - conscious or unconscious are revealed.
