Demographics
According to the 2001 UK Census, there were approximately 2,331,423 South Asians, constituting 4.0% of the population of the UK. Those who of Indian origin numbered 1,053,411 (1.8% of the population), 747,285 people were of Pakistani origin (1.3%), 283,063 were of Bangladeshi origin (0.5%), and 247,664 were other Asian (0.4%). South Asians make up 50.3% of the UK's non-European population.
British Indians tend to be religiously diverse, with 56% Hindu, 30% Sikh, and 13% Muslim, while their counterparts of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are much more religiously homogeneous, with Muslims accounting for 92% of each group. South Asians who marked "Other Asian" as an ethnic group and then wrote in their specific ethnic group were mostly (23%) of Sri Lankan origin. This was followed by fill-ins of Middle Eastern (9%) origin. Due to a growing sense of affiliation with Britain, many third generation South Asians chose to not mark "Asian or British Asian" and instead marked "British Asian" in the "Other Asian" write in section.
South Asian ethnic groups mostly originate from a few select places in South Asia, these are known as place of origins. British Indians tend to originate mainly from the two Indian States, Punjab and Gujarat. Evidence from Bradford and Birmingham have shown, Pakistanis originate largely from the Mirpur District in Azad Kashmir. The second largest ethnic group of British Pakistanis are the Punjabi people, largely from Attock District of Punjab followed by pathans and other ethnic groups from the districts of Nowshera, Peshwar and Ghazi in province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. In the London Borough of Waltham Forest there are substantial numbers of people originating from Jhelum, Punjab. Studies have shown 95 per cent of Bangladeshis originate from the Sylhet region in the north east of Bangladesh. In Tower Hamlets, people have origins in different thanas in the Sylhet region, mainly from Jagannathpur, Beanibazar and Bishwanath. The language spoken by Indians are, Hindi, Bengali language, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu and Kutchi. People from Pakistan speak Urdu, Punjabi, Mirpuri, Hindko(dialects of Punjabi), Sindhi, Kashmiri, Pashto, and Seraiki. Bangladeshis from Sylhet speak Sylheti, a dialect of Bengali and Bengali language. People from Sri Lanka mainly speak Tamil. Those who speak dialects mainly refer their language to the main language, for example Sylheti speakers say they speak Bengali or Mirpuri speakers say they speak Punjabi. The reason for this is because they do not expect outsiders to be well informed about dialects.
The unemployment rate among Indian men was only slightly higher than that for White British or White Irish men, 7 per cent compared with 5 per cent for the other two groups. On the other hand Pakistanis have higher unemployment rates of 13-14% with Bangladeshis having one of the highest rates, around 23%. Some surveys also revealed the Indian unemployment rate to be 6-7% Persons of Indian or mixed Indian origin are more likely than White British to have university degrees, whereas Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are less likely. With the exception of Bangladeshi women, every other group of South Asians, have higher attendance at university than the national average. GCSE pass rates have been rising for all South Asians.
According to the United Kingdom Census 2001, South Asian men from all South Asian ethnic groups intermarried with another ethnic group more than South Asian women. Among South Asians, British Indians intermarried with a different ethnic group the most both absolutely and proportionately, followed by British Pakistanis and British Bangladeshis.
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