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THE FIRST CENSUS in Northern Ireland to track sexual orientation has found that 2.1% of the region’s population identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or other.
The Census 2021 figures, published this morning, found that 31,600 people aged 16 or over in the region identified as LGB+.
Some 1.364 million adults (90%) identified as straight or heterosexual, and 119,000 (8%) did not answer the question, or preferred not to say.
By location, 4.1% in Belfast identified as LGB+ compared with 1.1% in Mid Ulster.
The figures indicate that Northern Ireland has the lowest percentage of people in the UK who identify as LGB+, after Wales (3%) and England (3.2%).
The Scottish census was run separately a year later.
The latest information, released by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra), also looks at employment, qualifications and marital status.
It found that of 1.515 million adults in Northern Ireland, 849,000 (56%) were in employment, 42,000 (2.8%) were unemployed and 624,000 (41%) were economically inactive due to being retired, long-term sick or disabled.
Around one in three said their highest level of qualification was a degree/NVQ 4 or above, while just under a quarter said they had no qualifications.
In terms of marital status, there has been a fall in the percentage of adults who are married over the last six censuses, from 61% in 1971 to 46% in 2021, and a rise in those who are single from 31% to 38%.
Around 7% of the population aged three or over (127,000) said they could speak Irish, and of those, 70,000 said they spoke Irish at least once a week.
Some 3.3% (61,000 people) aged three and over said they could speak the Ulster-Scots language, and 41,000 of those said they spoke Ulster-Scots at least once a week.
In terms of population make-up, 13.5% (257,000) were born outside Northern Ireland, with 105,000 having come to live in the region in the last 10 years, and 66,000 having arrived between 2001 and 2010.
Census 2021 was carried out in March last year.
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That’s all well and good, but are they Catholic gays or Protestant gays?
@Billy Pilgrim: LGTBQIRAUVF
@Paddy Tacsaí: +
@Billy Pilgrim: I’d say catholic gays. The protestant gays just shout NO! when confronted with a willy
@Gearóid MacEachaidh: shur their hero is a Willy.
@A$AP ETH: And a king-size one at that.
@Gearóid MacEachaidh: aren’t protestant Willie’s Orange !!!
@Paddy Tacsaí: any Buddhists and Hindus in this category?
I’s say it’s a lot more. 2.1% only represents those comfortable enough to state it.
@Chris Curran: Oh well, let’s not bother interviewing people about anything. Chris already knows all the answers.
@Chris Curran: For 2.1% of the population they sure make a lot of noise.
@Chris Curran Sorry if our love and happiness are such a nuisance for you. Maybe if the other 97.9% weren’t so busy complaining about the existence of 2% of the population, LGBT people wouldn’t have to make so much ‘noise’ just to be heard.
You sound like the kind of person who (being generous here) might say it’s ok to be gay as long as people don’t rub it in people’s face, while proceeding to put a “Lady’s man” T-shirt on a young child and asking him for the 15th time that year if he has a girlfriend yet.
Anyway, don’t worry, we’ll keep the volume low if you can keep your hate even lower ;)
Who cares??? What is this OBSESSION with categorizing everyone into little boxes that can be ticked?? Gay, black, short, tall, Asian, etc..
Where does it end?? I’m really sick of the divisiveness. We have anti discrimination laws on the books. Enough!
@Paulco: it ends when they finally realise that the ultimate, and indeed only accurate, categorisation is at the level of the individual. This stuff makes a lot more sense and is a lot more entertaining when you recognise that it’s just extremely slow learners trying to work out the philosophies that the rest of the civilised world reached in the enlightenment 250 years ago. They will get there eventually, but we’ll probably have a new crop of slow learners who need to take these baby steps away from collectivisation by then unfortunately.
The entire western world just seem to pander to this minority, weren’t we all just getting on with life when a rainbow flag appeared and we’re expected to respect it and we did, but give them an inch (npi) and they added more letters ,they’ll soon have an alphabet and good luck to them but it’s now come to a stage it insisting that the public change their views and reject what u were taught growing up, suddenly men are menstruating, no one seems to know what a woman is, u must use my pronouns, children as young as 3r4 are aware that there not happy as they are, child pornography in the classroom, Trans men entertaining children, puberty blockers Hormone injections, ye were nice about it until ye drew us in then it exploded into pure nonsense and now if we don’t concur we’re bigots, Classy
@Slim Browne: have you come across any of that in actual real life, or is it mostly rage baiting by right wing ‘activists’ that claim to be opposed to it, but give it nonstop oxygen by talking about it all the time. Anyone would think it’s easier to rail against this than stuff is actually pertinent to real life – housing, healthcare, inflation, waiting lists etc.
That seems awfully low and considering all the pandering corporations and media do towards the LGBT community. In reality it is higher but these figures are similar to that found in the US in the 1960s. I know NI is not Ireland but if we think not only how more accepting we are of gay people now compared to even 15 years ago most main parties in NI support general LGBT issues and as I said the media and corporations wrap themselves in the rainbow flag 2.1% seems low
Personally I think its 10% internationally
@Keith J: NI is Ireland, it’s literally the northern part of the island of Ireland.
@Keith J: where are you basing 10% from? A feeling? Not very scientific. The 2.1% is data..
Like anything , the media keeps on the lgbt agenda because it’s a conversation point , drives opinion and sells more articles. Nothing to do with how many lgbt’s there are. I guarantee there are more people who have a disability in the country yet there is feck all media attention around that..
@Keith J: was wondering this myself. The article says 2.1% of those 16yrs or older. I can’t imagine too many people still living at home would be confident with their mother or father filling that out to answer truthfully. It would be interesting to see what the breakdown of that 2.1% is when age is taken into account.
@An t-Iascaire Gaelach: ye but different country to be fair
@Paul Clancy: if 2.1% is the average across the general population, then its likely the same in the under 16 cohort.
@Ciaran: It’s British occupied Ireland. It’s part of our country as much as Munster or Connacht is.
Jaysus I thought there was a lot more than that, they’re everywhere and by God do they make some noise, 2 percent me arse.
The 10% figure was reached by Keynes. He wished to have a sample that he could follow up in the future so he chose the prison population. I would say that in answer to the question “have you had a homosexual experience in the past month” 10% was probably too low
have your say