Population Change and Geographic Inequalities in the UK, 1971-2011

这项研究将探讨英国人口的地理分布情况。该项目将为有关分裂、不平等以及英国人生活在一起或分开的方式的辩论带来一个新的、重要的视角。它将解决以下问题：地方之间的卫生不平等是否比过去更严重？是什么使地方不同——它们在地理上的区别更多是由住房使用权或健康状况而不是就业状况或种族决定的吗？哪些地区的人口多样性最大？ 1971年至2011年间发生了怎样的变化？为了回答这些问题，我们将从1971年、1981年、1991年、2001年和2011年的公开人口普查数据中生成人口表面，以便直接比较人口普查。每次人口普查都公布了若干小地理区域（如点票区或输出区）的各种人口分组（例如按资格、年龄等）的人口计数。这允许在每次人口普查中绘制和分析英国人口群体的地理格局。然而，这些小区域的大小和形状在人口普查中有所不同，因此，例如，1971年的小区域边界与2011年的边界非常不同。这个项目将为每个普查年制作人口表，作为克服这一问题的一种手段。人口曲面是对规则网格的人口数量的估计（例如，人口估计超过1亿× 1亿网格单元）；这些数据可以直接与人口普查进行比较。因此，一旦这些人口表面可用，我们将能够考虑地区是如何变化的以及以何种方式变化的。这个新的人口表面资源将免费提供，以便用户可以自己探索这些变化，也可以更深入地考虑我们产生的结果。我们将利用这一资源提供英国人口在过去40年中如何变化的第一个系统综述。它将显示英国的人口群体在地理上是如何分布的，它将详细评估不同地区（例如，在苏格兰中部）或地区（例如，英格兰东南部或英格兰西北部）在人口特征方面变得更加相似或更加不同。该项目还将考虑人口群体之间的关系如何随着时间的推移而变化。例如，有了一致的地理位置，就有可能评估哪些小地区的失业率非常高，社会租赁家庭的比例也很大，以及这些地区的特征在1971年至2011年间发生了什么变化。我们还将能够确定哪些人口特征最能区分特定地区。例如，英格兰西北部一些地区的人口在健康状况不佳、失业和住房保有情况方面可能非常相似，但在单身家庭的数量或受抚养子女的平均数量方面却有所不同。该项目将详细探讨这些差异，并首次对个别人口群体的地理分布和各地区的综合多种特征作出详细的描述。对于任何对英国人口地理感兴趣的用户来说，人口表面资源将是无价的，而我们对人口分布的分析结果将丰富我们对过去40年来英国人口变化方式的理解。

The research will explore how the population of the UK is, or has been, geographically distributed. The project will bring a new and important perspective to debates about divisions, inequalities and the ways in which people in the UK live together or apart. It will address questions such as: are health inequalities between places greater now than in the past? What makes localities different - are they geographically distinguished more by housing tenure or health than they are by employment status or ethnicity? What areas have the greatest diversity of people and how has this changed between 1971 and 2011? To answer these questions, we will generate population surfaces from publicly available Census data for 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2011 to enable direct comparisons between Censuses. Counts of people in a variety of population sub-groups (e.g., by qualifications, age, etc) have been released from each Census for sets of small geographical areas (such as enumeration districts or output areas). This allows the mapping and analysis of geographical patterning in population groups across the UK for each Census. However, these small areas differ in size and shape between Censuses, so the 1971 small area boundaries, for example, are very different to those for 2011. This project will produce population surfaces for each Census year as a means of overcoming this problem. Population surfaces are estimates of counts of people for regular grids (with population estimates over, for example, 100m by 100m grid cells); these can be directly compared between Censuses. So, once these population surfaces are available we will be able to consider how localities have changed and in what ways. This new population surface resource will be made freely available so that users can explore these changes for themselves and also consider in more depth the results we produce. We will use this resource to provide the first systematic review of how the population of the UK has changed over the last 40 years. It will show how population groups in the UK are geographically distributed and it will assess, in detail, how far different localities (for example, within central Scotland) or regions (for example, south east England or north west England) are becoming more similar or more different to one another in terms of their population characteristics. The project will also consider how the relationships between population groups have changed across time. For example, with a consistent geography, it will be possible to assess which small area localities have very high rates of unemployment together with large proportions of social rented households, and how the characteristics of these localities changed between 1971 and 2011. We will also be able to identify which population characteristics most strongly distinguish particular areas. As an example, the population in some localities in north west England may be very similar in terms of levels of poor health, unemployment and housing tenure, but differ in terms of the number of single person households or the average number of dependent children. The project will explore these differences in detail and, for the first time, construct a detailed profile of the geographical distribution of individual population groups and the multiple characteristics of areas in combination. The population surface resource will be invaluable to any users interested in the population geography of the UK, while the results of our analysis of population distributions will enrich our understanding of the ways in which the population of the UK has changed over the last 40 years.