This dataset is an analysis of the Characteristics of usual residents by whether they have previously served in the UK armed forces, with adjusted estimates for the non-veteran population, based on Census 2021.
People who have previously served in the UK armed forces includes those who have served for at least one day in HM’s Armed Forces, either regular or reserves, or Merchant Mariners who have seen duty on legally defined military operations. It does not include those who have left and since re-entered the regular or reserve UK armed forces, those who have only served in.
The veteran population are older than the general population and also differ in relation to sex and where they live, and these factors interact with other personal characteristics. For example, age can be strongly related to other personal characteristics such as legal partnership status, health and religion. Because of this, veterans may also differ to the usual or non-veteran population when considering related factors such as health and legal partnership status. It is important to be aware of these differences but also to understand when these differences are not attributable to experience of having previously served in the UK armed forces.
Country of birth
The country in which a person was born. For people not born in one of in the four parts of the UK, there was an option to select "elsewhere". People who selected "elsewhere" were asked to write in the current name for their country of birth.
Ethnic group and high-level ethnic group
The ethnic group that the person completing the census feels they belong to. This could be based on their culture, family background, identity or physical appearance.
Respondents could choose one out of 19 tick-box response categories, including write-in response options. High-level ethnic group refers to the first stage of the two-stage ethnic group question. High-level groups refer to the first stage where the respondent identifies through one of the following options:
"Asian, Asian British, Asian Welsh"
"Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African"
"Mixed or Multiple"
"White"
* "Other ethnic group"
General health
A person's assessment of the general state of their health from very good to very bad. This assessment is not based on a person's health over any specified period of time.
Legal partnership status
Classifies a person according to their legal marital or registered civil partnership status on Census Day 21 March 2021.
Gender identity
Gender identity refers to a person’s sense of their own gender, whether male, female or another category such as non-binary. This may or may not be the same as their sex registered at birth.
Religion
The religion people connect or identify with (their religious affiliation), whether or not they practice or have belief in it.
This question was voluntary, and the variable includes people who answered the question, including “No religion”, alongside those who chose not to answer this question.
This variable classifies responses into the eight tick-box response options. Write-in responses are classified by their "parent" religious affiliation, including “No religion”, where applicable.
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an umbrella term covering sexual identity, attraction, and behaviour. For an individual respondent, these may not be the same. For example, someone in an opposite-sex relationship may also experience same-sex attraction, and vice versa. This means the statistics should be interpreted purely as showing how people responded to the question, rather than being about whom they are attracted to or their actual relationships.
We have not provided glossary entries for individual sexual orientation categories. This is because individual respondents may have differing perspectives on the exact meaning.
Usual resident
A usual resident is anyone who on Census Day, 21 March 2021, was in the UK and had stayed or intended to stay in the UK for a period of 12 months or more, or had a permanent UK address and was outside the UK and intended to be outside the UK for less than 12 months.
UK armed forces veteran
People who have previously served in the UK armed forces. This includes those who have served for at least one day in HM’s Armed Forces, either regular or reserves, or Merchant Mariners who have seen duty on legally defined military operations. It does not include those who have left and since re-entered the regular or reserve UK armed forces, those who have only served in foreign armed forces, or those who have served in the UK armed forces and are currently living outside of England and Wales.
