By Faha
The Department of Education has recently released data on the religion of pupils for the 2020-2021 school year. This data has been compiled yearly since the 2000-2001 school year. The religion of pupils for primary and secondary schools is recorded for Protestant, Catholic, Other Christian, Non-Christian and No Religion/Not Recorded.
Since 2018 the Other Christian, Non-Christian and No Religion categories have been combined into one. However, based on trends since 2000 it is possible to give estimates of the different groups in the 2020-2021 school census.
I will compare the results of the 2020-2021 school census with that of the 2000-2001 school census.
The 2000-2021 school census recorded 328,044 primary and secondary school pupils and the 2020-2021 school census recorded 328,627 primary and secondary school pupils. The number of students has been remarkably stable over that 20 year period. However, that unchanged number of total students does not reveal some important underlying changes.
Protestant 2000-2001 140,337
2020-2021 105,115
Net Change -35,222
Catholic 2000-2001 166,311
2020-2021 166,487
Net Change +176
Other Christian 2000-2001 4,275
2020-2021 14,000
Net Change +9,725
Non-Christian 2000-2001 1,110
2020-2021 4,200
Net Change +3,090
No Religion 2000-2001 16,011
2020-2021 38,825
Net Change 22,814
The number of Catholic students is unchanged from 20 years ago. There has been a large decline of over 35,000 students who are Protestant.
Since the number of total students and Catholic students is unchanged, that 35,000 decline in Protestants has been offset by a 35,000 increase in the number of students who are Non-Christian, Other Christian and No Religion.
The 4,200 Non-Christians would be mainly Muslim and Hindu. The No Religion group are those who are not being raised in any religion.
The Other Christian group is very mixed. The Other Christian students are much more likely to attend Integrated schools. These students would include the Eastern Orthodox children of Romanian, Bulgarian, Latvian, Greek, etc. immigrants. Others would be children of mixed Catholic-Protestant marriages who are being raised as Christian but not belonging to a particular Catholic or Protestant denomination. Some would be Christian related such as Mormons.
In looking at the percentages of the different religions of the different groups in the 2020-2021 census these are the results:
Catholic 50.66%
Protestant 31.99%
Other Christian 4.26%
Non-Christian 1.28%
No Religion 11.81%
It is clear that there has been a dramatic decline in the Protestant percentage of the student age population.
This will have major implications for future elections since all of these students will be of voting age within 13 years at the latest for the youngest and 1 year for the oldest.
Some may claim that the No Religion students are future Unionist voters. However, multiple opinion polls in recent years show that 50% of those with No Religion prefer the Alliance-Green parties, 25% nationalist parties, and 25% unionist parties. Since approximately 15% of Protestants vote for Alliance and other non unionist parties these new voters will gradually introduce a declining unionist total vote.
The unionist parties share of these new voters will struggle to exceed 30% with the other 70% voting for nationalist or non sectarian parties.
The unionist political parties do not seem to be aware of or be preparing for the coming demographic changes in the future electorate as evidenced in the school census figures above.
It’s interesting that there are no comments yet upon this blog yet the views are through the roof. I have a couple of points, it is no surprise to me about the school demographics, the pro union age group is much older and tend not to have as many children naturally. That makes sense. The direction of this is very clear, it’s a simple direction, has no unionist yet realised this? My point would be that the longer they delay a poll to reunite Ireland, the more the chances of them winning that poll diminish.
I don’t think this is rocket scientist territory
LikeLike
It does not look like the trend will be stopping.
The 2020/21 data subset for primary school children (ages 4 – 11) is P – 29.88%, C – 50.49%, O – 19.63%.
Not exactly analogous to the North in the 1920s because Others didn’t exist then but in percentage it is almost a reversal of the Protestant / Catholics proportions at Partition.
It is also worth considering the decision of school leavers to remain in or leave Northern Ireland.
I’ve not seen precise numbers in years but the trend is that Protestant school leavers are more likely to leave the North and more likely to stay away, which in aggregate can only impact on the Protestant community’s future fertility rate.
Given the demographic and educational trends, the North in terms of politics, business, culture is going to become increasingly Catholic and non-Orange Unionist.
“Our wee country” no more.
PS – Hope all is well with your family Bangordub and thanks as always to you and Faha for the blogs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Excellent observations ! I only presented the data in the school census and did not discuss the effects of emigration. The Census Office does track emigration and immigration. There is a net in migration to Northern Ireland of 2,000 to 3,000 per year. However, the underlying trend is that there is a net in migration of ~7,000 foreign nationals yearly and net out migration of 5,000 native born. Since Protestant school leavers are more likely to attend university outside of Northern Ireland and not return the net out migration is approximately:
Protestant 2,000
Catholic 2,000
None/Other 1,000
However, there is a net in migration of 1,000 per year from the Republic of Ireland and none of them would be unionist voters. So the future new voters recorded in the school census are all those included in the school census minus the net out migration of natives and the in migration of those from the Republic or Ireland.
Protestant 2,000
Catholic 1,100
None/Other 900
So the eventual new voting age voters would be less then 30% Protestant after net migration is taken into account. Since some Protestants vote Alliance/Green the percentage of the net new voters who will vote for unionist parties could be as low as 25%.
LikeLike
In the census 2001 figures for religious background by ages divided in year intervals, 10-20 year olds (people born 1981-91) are 45% Protestant in every year group.
In the 2011 census, the 20-30 year olds (same year group born between 1981-91) the Protestant percentage dips from 45% to 40% for 30 year olds and to 43% for 20 year olds. I’ve pasted a link where you can see this visibly.
It might be the case that the reduction in Protestants between 2001 and 2011 was due to school leavers going to Britain.
If you look at the 2011 graph in the link, with the up to date school census figures you can see that the trends have continued over the past decade.
Every year Catholics are at 50%, while Protestants decline at a steady rate to just under 30% for those born in recent years.
We’ll know if that guess is correct when we get census 2021 figures.
http://endgameinulster.blogspot.com/2013/05/census-2011-third-release.html?m=0
PS nice to see the same people commenting on the thread in the link from 2013, commenting here now! How much has changed in 8 years; how much we’ve stayed the same.
LikeLike
Well done a great blog post yet again. Keep up the good work.
LikeLike
It was reported by the Census Director today that 10% of people in Northern Ireland have yet to complete a census form. Reminders are being sent out and homes contacted. 90% is a very good return at this time. In 2011, 9% of the total population was never counted so it appears that the eventual census return will be much higher in 2021.
LikeLike
Faha,
I tend to agree with you on this, we won’t have the issue of people being abroad this time around but we will likely have an older demographic without as much internet access and also issues such as illness or incapacity.
I’d be surprised if at least 5% of the missing 10% isn’t captured.
LikeLike
Wow, I didn’t realise that so many people are not counted.
That’s more than enough, not just to cancel, but to completely reverse the Catholic – Protestant ratio, or more pessimistically, to double it.
It means we’ll have to give even more weight to Faha’s school and employment figures etc, compared to our rough census figures.
Keep it up. There’s a long way tp go to the next election.
LikeLike