Nabanita Sircar
London, December 11
The Hindustan Times UK Edition

Ethnic minority groups accounted for almost three-quarters of the population growth in Britain between 1991 and 2001. The number of Asians and the Blacks grew by 1.6 million compared with an increase of 600,000 among the white population. Experts said that both less education and religious ban on the use of contraceptives were the major reasons for the greater growth among the ethnic minority groups.

The study by the London School of Economics showed that the fastest-growing category was that of Black African, which more than doubled from 212,000 to 485,000. Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Chinese groups too saw rapid growth.

The Indians' rate of growth is much less, said the experts, because of more of them being highly educated and doing well professionally. The total UK population rose by four per cent in the decade and 73 per cent of this growth was in the ethnic groups. The ethnic minority population rose from 3,104,000 in 1991 to 4,623,000 in 2001.

Prof Anne Power, one of the academics behind the study, said that the changing composition of minority groups should reinforce the arguments in favour of a strong urban policy. The risks of segregation and inner-city collapse must be avoided for they have characterised patterns of high minority concentrations in the US.