A Portrait of Jews in London and the South-East: a community study:
2 / Introduction to the survey sample

Gender of respondants

The Greater London survey was carried out from February to April 2002. A total of 2,965 questionnaires were completed and returned.¹⁰ Just over half (51 per cent) of the respondents were men and 48 per cent were women. In just over 1 per cent of cases, the respondent failed to answer this question. This is a slight over-representation of males since demographic studies have shown that females comprise around 55 per cent of the Jewish population. It is also unusual for men to be overly co-operative with a social survey in Britain.

Table 2.1: Gender of respondents¹¹

Household type

A third (33 per cent) of the responding households comprised a couple with no children and another 21 per cent included a couple with children. People living alone represented a fifth (19 per cent). This type of household is under-represented in the survey, a fact that might partially explain the male bias among respondents, since women, especially widows, are more likely to live alone. The remaining 27 per cent of households were made up of extended households without children (15 per cent), extended households with children (8 per cent), a single parent with child (2 per cent) and all other types of household (2 per cent).¹²

Table 2.2: Profile of household types

 

Marital status

Respondents were asked to indicate their marital status; 74 per cent were married, and a further 11 per cent were widowed. The remainder were either single and never married (7 per cent), divorced or separated (5 per cent), or living with a partner (2 per cent). This is an over-representation of married respondents compared with JPR's 1995 survey of the social and political attitudes of British Jews, in which married respondents comprised 68 per cent of the sample. There is a consequent under-representation of never-marrieds, who comprised 16 per cent of the 1995 sample.

Age of respondents

We requested that a Jewish adult (18 years or over) complete each questionnaire (Table 2.3). The breakdown of the respondents by age indicates that 40 per cent were completed by persons aged 45_64, and another third by people aged 65 or over (the oldest respondent was 101). The remaining 26 per cent were completed by someone under 45. Less than 1 per cent of the respondents failed to state their age. The median age of the respondents was 56 years. In the 1995 survey, the median age of respondents was 47 years. This is an indication of this survey being skewed towards older people.

Age breakdown of population in sample households

The questionnaire also asked the ages of all the individuals living in the responding households. The median age of all persons in the participating households was 45, while just under 20 per cent were aged 65 or over, and a little less than a quarter of the population was under 18 years of age. In contrast to the findings in the Leeds survey--in which there was a sharp under-representation of people aged 18_34--in Greater London people in this age-group comprised 17 per cent of the population. People aged 35_44 (the group most likely to have young children) accounted for 12 per cent, and the middle-aged groups (45_64) made up the remaining 30 per cent of the sample population (Table 2.3).

Table 2.3: Age profile of respondents

Table 2.4: Age profile of all members of households

Table 2.5: Number of children under 18 in household

There were 902 households in the sample in which there was at least one child under 18 years old, comprising just over 30 per cent of the sample households. Of those households with children, 44 per cent contained two children, 32 per cent a single child, and 20 per cent three children. Just 4 per cent of all households with children had four or more.

Educational qualifications

Ninety-five per cent of respondents supplied information about the highest educational qualification they had attained. These respondents tended to be reasonably well educated: almost 7 in 10 (69 per cent) had at least A-Levels, and half had gained at least a first degree from a university.

Figure 2.1: Highest educational qualification gained by respondents

Employment status

We asked respondents about their employment status: 6 in 10 (61 per cent) were currently working (36 per cent as employees and 25 per cent were self-employed). Those respondents who were currently in paid work were asked to provide details of their job; this information was then used to classify respondents into NS-SEC analytic classes (for details, see Appendix). These respondents tended to fall into the highest two groups: higher managerial and professional (34 per cent) or lower professional and managerial (33 per cent).

Table 2.6: Respondents currently working, by NS-SEC analytic class

* Percentages have throughout been rounded to the
nearest whole number for ease of comprehension. As a
result, percentage totals may in some cases add up to
'99' or '101'. Nonetheless, all totals are given as '100'.

Geographic distribution

The sample was selected bearing in mind what is known about the geographic location of the Jewish community in Greater London. Nonetheless, there were variable response rates for the different parts of the metropolis. The distribution of the respondents generally followed the distribution of the overall Jewish population (for details, see Chapter 12).

Some 65 per cent of respondents were located in North and North-west London. Thirty per cent were in the outer suburbs of Edgware, Stanmore, Northwood and Wembley, in the London boroughs of Barnet, Harrow, Brent and Hillingdon. A further 8 per cent were in North-west London but beyond the old GLC boundaries in South Hertfordshire, in Elstree, Borehamwood and Radlett. Another 9 per cent were in Southgate and Totteridge in the outer reaches of the boroughs of Barnet and Enfield. The remaining 17 per cent were located in Highgate, Garden Suburb and East Finchley in the London boroughs of Barnet and Haringey.

Nine per cent of respondents were located in Inner London areas, including Hampstead, St Johns Wood, Kensington and Holland Park, in the London boroughs of Camden, Westminster, and Kensington and Chelsea.
Nineteen per cent of the respondents were in North-east London within the London Borough of Redbridge, and adjoining areas of southern Essex.

Finally, 7 per cent of responses were received from Jewish households scattered widely throughout metropolitan London south of the Thames and within the M25 ring road.

There were some important differences in the social and demographic characteristics of respondents across the eight sampled areas. Some of these are summarized below and in Table 2.7.

· South Hertfordshire: respondents tended to be younger than average and fairly well educated, and 46 per cent of households contained children (compared with an average of 30 per cent).

· Highgate and Garden Suburb, Inner London: respondents tended to be highly educated and more likely to be in higher managerial or professional jobs.

· Redbridge and Essex: respondents were slightly older than average, with far fewer educational qualifications than other respondents, and were less likely to be in higher professional or managerial jobs; they were slightly more likely than others to describe their current Jewish religious practice as 'just Jewish' (34 per cent in Redbridge and 30 per cent in Essex, compared with an average of 22 per cent).

· South London: the proportion of female respondents in this area was lower than average and respondents were relatively well educated and much more likely to regard themselves as 'secular'; 42 per cent described their current Jewish religious practice as 'non-practising' compared with 12 per cent overall, and only 71 per cent answered 'Jewish' to the religion question in the 2001 Census (the overall figure for the sample was 84 per cent) (see Table 2.12).

Table 2.7: Differences by geographical area

* See Table 2.6 and Appendix

Being Jewish

Some Jews regard themselves as a religious minority. Others think of themselves as members of an ethnic group. Still others tend to think of themselves primarily as British, albeit with Jewish origins. Nevertheless, even those Jews who think of themselves as 'just Jewish' or 'secular' or 'cultural Jews' have some sort of affinity with Jewish practice, even if it is marginal--and Jewish culture in its broadest sense usually connects somehow with Jewish religion, beliefs and practices, even if the links are sometimes tenuous.

We asked five questions that touched on religion. They concerned (a) Jewish upbringing, or the type of Jewish home or communal environment in which the respondent was raised, (b) current Jewish practice, or the type of home or communal environment in which the respondent was currently living, (c) membership of a synagogue, (d) religious outlook, i.e. irrespective of religious upbringing or practice or whether the person was currently associated with a synagogue, how s/he regarded his/her Jewish (and general) lifestyle and beliefs, and finally (e) whether the respondent had self-identified as Jewish in the voluntary religion question on the 2001 Census.

Jewish upbringing

Over half of the respondents (55 per cent) were raised in what they described as a 'traditional' Jewish environment. Just over 7 per cent were raised in strictly Orthodox homes, in which the Sabbath laws were observed to the full; 9 per cent were raised as Reform or Progressive Jews. However, fully 27 per cent of the respondents said that they had been brought up in environments that could best be described as non-practising (secular or cultural) or 'just Jewish' homes. Less than 1 per cent of the respondents were not raised in a Jewish family.

Table 2.8: Jewish upbringing

Current Jewish practice

When comparing current Jewish practice with respondents' upbringing, there was a overall move over time towards the more liberal end of the religious spectrum. Just 41 per cent of the respondents described their current religious practice as 'traditional', a shift of 14 percentage points--and a decline of 26 per cent--compared with the number who grew up in this type of environment. The proportion that described themselves as Orthodox was approximately the same as the proportion with that type of upbringing. But the proportion of the sample who regarded their current religious practice as Reform or Progressive was over 16 per cent (compared with 9 per cent with that type of upbringing), and over a third of the respondents regarded their religious practice as secular/cultural or 'just Jewish' (compared with around a quarter who grew up in such households).

Table 2.9 illustrates the differences between this 'middle-of-the-road' sample and the more representative 1995 survey. The main variation is the under-representation of the non-practising element and its corollary, the over-representation of those self-identifying as 'traditional'.

Table 2.9: Current Jewish practice, 2001 and 1995 JPR surveys

* In the 1995 JPR survey, the Orthodox and Haredi
categories were grouped together.

Membership of a synagogue

The concept of religious practice clearly differed from synagogue membership in the minds of respondents. Whereas a third of the respondents regarded their religious practice as secular or 'just Jewish', only 17 per cent did not belong to a synagogue; 57 per cent were members of a synagogue that belongs to one of the Orthodox or strictly Orthodox streams. On the other hand, 20 per cent were members of a Progressive synagogue and 4 per cent belonged to the relatively new Masorti (Conservative) movement.

Table 2.10 shows that, when compared with JPR's 1995 survey, the current survey has under-represented the unaffiliated and over-represented the 'middle-of-the-road' as mainstream modern Orthodox.

 

Religious outlook

Religious outlook was yet another concept in the minds of respondents. In spite of what people told us about their current Jewish practice and the synagogues to which they belonged, 58 per cent of respondents regarded their outlook as secular or somewhat secular, compared with only 42 per cent who thought of themselves as religious or somewhat religious. This means that people may do certain things or follow practices that might be regarded as religious but nevertheless think of their general outlook as secular. Thus, these personal dissonances make for a complex socio-religious fabric.

Table 2.10: Membership of a synagogue, by type

* In the 1995 JPR survey, the United Synagogue and
the Federation of Synagogues were grouped together.

** Most of this category were probably members of
Sephardi synagogues.

Table 2.11: Religious outlook

2001 Census question

Only two-thirds (67 per cent) of the respondents to this survey identified with a Jewish religious denomination (Table 2.9). However, when asked whether they had answered 'Jewish' to the voluntary question on religion in the Census conducted in April 2001, the vast majority (5 out of every 6) answered in the affirmative. Only 5 per cent of respondents said that they had chosen not to answer the religion question on the Census and a further 7 per cent could not remember if they had answered it or, if they had, what answer they had given. Of the remainder, just over 1 per cent said that they had given a different answer and another 2.5 per cent had not filled in a Census enumeration form. Apparently, many respondents who self-identify as 'non-practising' and 'just Jewish' felt motivated to identify as Jewish in the religion question on the Census. These responses can help throw some light on the coverage and reliability of a census question that had caused some disquiet. It also indicates that data from the 2001 Census can be used to extract useful information on Jews when they are made available.¹³

Table 2.12: Whether respondents answered 'Jewish' to the
religion question in the 2001 Census

Summary

The findings on religious outlook are highly significant for community policy. Compared with known patterns of synagogue membership in London and JPR's 1995 survey of social and political attitudes of British Jews, there is an over-representation of traditional Jews and mainstream Orthodox synagogue members, and a parallel under-representation of non-practising and unaffiliated Jews among these respondents (Tables 2.9 and 2.10). Yet, given these characteristics of the sample and even despite them, the overall clear preference for the secular end of the spectrum with regard to personal self-definition is surprising and even anomalous.

Notes

10 For further details, see Chapter 12.[back]
11 A note on tables. Most questions had a low level of non-response, that is, a few respondents (usually no more than 1 or 2 per cent) left that question blank. Unless otherwise indicated, these non-responders are not included in individual table bases.[back]
12 Seven household types were identified from the survey data: (1) single person; (2) couple, no children (under 18); (3) couple with child(ren) (under 18); (4) extended household without child(ren) under 18 (extended households are those that contain relatives other than children under 18; households that contain a son or daughter of the respondent aged 18+ are therefore classified under the extended household codes); (5) extended household with child(ren) (under 18); (6) single parent with child; (7) other (all households containing a non-relative are coded as 'other'). [back]
13 Barry A. Kosmin, Ethnic and Religious Questions in the 2001 UK Census of Population: Policy Recommendations (London: The Institute for Jewish Policy Research 1999). See also Peter Aspinall, 'Should a question on "religion" be asked in the 2001 British Census? A public policy case in favour', Social Policy and Administration, vol. 34, no. 5, 2000, 584_600, and the special issue, 'The ethnic and religious questions in the British Census: a symposium', Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 32, no. 2, April 1998. [back]