’Younger and more likely to be looking after relatives' - Government Census reveals

The government have released a report delving into the characteristics of the 71,440 people who identified as “Gypsy or Irish Traveller” in the England and Wales Census, which took place in March, 2021.

Some of the snapshot headlines from the report, released by the Office for National Statistics earlier this month, are that:

Gypsies and Irish Travellers (who answered the Census) are about 0.12% of the population – in other words for every Gypsy or Irish Traveller, there are nearly a thousand non-Gypsy and Traveller people.
Gypsies and Irish Travellers are also nearly a thousand times more likely to live in a mobile home or caravan than a non-Gypsy or Irish Traveller.
However, only one in five of Gypsies and Irish Travellers live in mobile homes or caravans – the rest live in flats, houses and bungalows.
Nearly ¾ of Gypsies and Irish Travellers reported being in good or very good health.
However, the proportion of how many reported being in bad health was a lot higher than the wider population – nearly twice as many for late middle-aged to elderly Gypsies and Irish Travellers
Gypsies or Irish Travellers were almost twice as likely to provide 50 or more hours of unpaid care per week for a relative or friend than the wider population.
Self-employment was more common among Gypsies and Irish Travellers than in the wider population – and the most popular occupation (among men in England) was skilled trades.
Nearly two-thirds of those who identified as Gypsy or Irish Traveller also identified as Christian. This was higher than the wider population of whom less than half identified as Christian.
Those who identified as Gypsy or Irish Traveller and Christian were also younger on average – 28 years old – compared to Christians from the wider population, who averaged 51 years old.
There are more younger and less elderly Gypsies and Irish Travellers proportionately than the wider population.

Education

The census analysis looked at highest level of qualification for people aged 16 years and over. People who identified as Gypsy or Irish Traveller were three times more likely to have no qualifications

The diagram below shows the highest level qualification percentages for Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic groups and England and Wales population, England and Wales, Census 2021

This shows that over half (56.8%) of people who identified as Gypsy or Irish Traveller had no qualifications, in comparison to 18.2% of the England and Wales population had no qualifications.

Level 4 qualifications were the next most common category for those who identified as Gypsy or Irish Traveller (11.2%). However, this is a third of the percentage who reported this in the England and Wales population (33.8%), where it was the most common category.

Qualifications by sex and age

For all age groups and across both sexes, people who identified as Gypsy or Irish Traveller were always more likely to have no qualifications than the England and Wales population.

The difference was particularly noticeable for the 20 to 21 years age group:

Females in this age group who identified as Gypsy or Irish Traveller were over eight times more likely to have no qualifications compared with females of this age in the England and Wales population (44.4% compared with 5.1%).
Males in this age group who identified as Gypsy or Irish Traveller were over six times more likely to have no qualifications than males of this age in the England and Wales population (45.8% compared with 7.2%).

The full government report can be read here: Gypsy or Irish Traveller populations, England and Wales Census 2021