Abstract
This paper explores how the population of England and Wales in 2001 and in 2011 was spatially concentrated by a range of demographic, social and economic characteristics. Where members of population sub-groups tend to live apart from members of other sub-groups then the population may be regarded as geographically unequal. In the UK, debates about the north–south divide have reflected the principal geographical division in public perception, with wealth and health inequalities at the forefront. This analysis uses variograms to characterise the differences between areas over multiple spatial scales. There is evidence for stronger spatial structure (more distinct spatial patterning) in variables including car and van availability and ethnicity than in age, self-reported illness, and qualifications, and these relate to urban–rural differences in the former variables. The key contribution of the paper is in using directional variograms and variogram maps to show marked differences in population concentrations by direction with, for example, north–south differences in qualifications being (on average) greater than those in the east–west direction. However, for most variables which show increased variation (and thus suggest increased geographical inequalities) between 2001 and 2011, increases are proportionally similar in all directions. Only in the case of self-reported ill-health does the north–south (or, in this case, north west–south east) divide appear to have increased.
Highlights
This paper explores how the population of England and Wales in 2001 and in 2011 was spatially concentrated by a range of demographic, social and economic characteristics
This paper offers a solution to both of these limitations: it is based on data for the smallest Census output geographies and it uses directional variograms as a means of characterising differences between small areas in several directions
In common with Voas and Williamson (2000), the population by age is found to be fairly geographically even while the distinct spatial structure of the population by ethnicity is apparent; this is demonstrated by examination of the form of the variograms
Summary
This paper explores how the population of England and Wales in 2001 and in 2011 was spatially concentrated by a range of demographic, social and economic characteristics. Use of zones larger than OAs would impact on the ability to measure the magnitude of differences and so a strong case can be made for using the smallest available zones This is the first piece of published research which has sought to examine inter-regional differences in such a way and it provides an original approach to the analysis of geographical inequalities and enhances our understanding of the demographic, social and economic geographies of England and Wales and the ways in which they changed between 2001 and 2011. The paper provides a systematic analysis of spatial scale of variation in a set of population sub-groups by computing variograms for each variable for 2001 and 2011, building on the examples given by Lloyd (2015). The compositions (sets of percentages) used in the study are two-part (ethnicity, cars and vans, qualifications, employment and LLTI all comprise two sets of percentages), three-part (housing tenure and NS-SEC comprise three sets of percentages) and four-part (age); the log-ratios were computed as follows (see Table 1 for definitions of input variables): Two-part compositions rffiffi
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