Like dutiful citizens, our family filled in our Census forms at the weekend. In the UK, this is done every 10 years and has been since 1801 (with the exception of 1941 because of the war). Like voting, I get a sense of civic duty in doing this, even though the questions are pretty bland. Apart from the name and address, ages, and who lives (or stays the night) with you, the rest of the form this year was uneventful. All the census seems to want to know about is your ethnicity, heritage and religion. So for Heritage you get a long list of options to choose from, white British, white Irish, black Caribbean etc. You even get a box to enter your own words if you don’t like the choices on offer. I decided this year to define my heritage as “white European”.
Ten years ago when the UK census was being put together, there was quite a hubbub about religion. A rumour circulated that if enough people specified a religion that wasn’t one of those listed, then it would have to be included in the list for future census. A campaign sprang up to get people to enter their religion as “Jedi”, and over 300,000 UK citizens (0.8%) did just that. The official response was that just because so many people put “Jedi” didn’t mean they’d add it, which is a shame. It will be interesting to see how the numbers have changed in a decade. In 2001, 72% of the UK defined itself as Christian. 15% said Atheist or No religion (and that’s the category the Jedi were put into), and the rest of the numbers were pretty small: Muslim 3%, Hindu 1%, Sikh 0.6%, Jewish 0.5% being the next highest. I do wonder how many though decided to put Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – it’s real, look it up.
This year, we also got more options to choose from on gender. Speaking as someone who’s never questioned my own gender, this does seem a bit tedious, although I’ve no doubt it is absolutely vital to some people and I’ve no quibble with people referring to themselves in whatever terms they want. Where I baulk is in being blamed if I get it wrong as if it’s my insensitivity that’s to blame. All I can say to that is you have a particular preference for a term of address in relation to your chosen gender, and it matters that much, it’s up to you to ensure people you engage with understand rather than blaming them for making perfectly natural assumptions. I was on a Zoom call with someone who used their Zoom name to remind people that they wanted to be referred to as “she” for example, which was tactful and helpful.
The most puzzling thing on the census this year though was a section on employment. The Government seems keen to know everyone’s job titles and how many hours we work per week – which for me is an average of 40. Now given this is an anonymous statistical exercise rather than a mortgage application form, a mischievous part of me wanted to put in “Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Harbinger of Evil” as my job title, requiring me to work 168 hours a week. But in the end I wimped out and left it as “Project Manager”.