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Religion

  • Mnemonic reference

    RELPS11

  • Applicability

    Person

  • Type

    Derived variable

Definition

This is a person’s current religious denomination or body that they belong to, or if the person does not have a religion, ‘None’. No determination is made about whether a person was a practising member of a religion. Unlike other census questions where missing answers are imputed, this question was voluntary, and where no answer was provided the response is categorised as ‘not stated’.

These are simplified classifications we used to create outputs for the 2011 census.

View a full list of all possible religion classifications

Classification

Total number of categories 12

Each response option will have a corresponding index entry number on the Religion Index. For ticks only, these index numbers were output to Religion1.

Text responses were matched to the Religion Index and the specified index entry number was output to Religion2. If the text was misspelt or written slightly different to that of the index, coding specifications were used to attempt to identify the relevant index entry number to output to Religion2.

Religion is the “overall” output and will be the same as either Religion1 or Religion2.

For text that is an uncodeable output, a code of VVV is given to Religion2.

Code Name
01 None
02 Church of Scotland
03 Roman Catholic
04 Other Christian
05 Buddhist
06 Hindu
07 Jewish
08 Muslim
09 Sikh
10 Other religion or body
11 Not stated
XX No code required - comprises schoolchildren and full-time students living away from home during term time.

Source question or variables

Religion (Standard variable)

Scotland 2001 comparison

In the statistical bulletin for release 2A, the data for 2001 for the ‘Other religion’ and ‘No religion’ categories were amended to match the 2011 coding, as some responses which were coded as ‘Other religion’ in 2001 were coded as ‘No religion’ in 2011.  

  • Mnemonic reference

    RELPUK

Definition

These questions ask the person to record their religion. In Scotland there is a separate question asking for the religion the person was brought up in. In Northern Ireland, people who do not regard themselves as belonging to any religion are asked to record the religion they were brought up in. A write-in is provided where the person's religion is not provided as a tick box response. A detailed list of codes was used to code the write-in responses for England and Wales and Northern Ireland. This list contains some codes, added during processing, which are only applicable in Northern Ireland. Write-in answers are not coded in Scotland.

Missing answers will not be imputed so the classifications include a 'not stated' category.

Classification

Total number of categories 11

Code Name
01 None
02 Church of Scotland
03 Roman Catholic
04 Other Christian
05 Buddhist
06 Hindu
07 Jewish
08 Muslim
09 Sikh
​10 Another religion
11 Not answered