If you’re not religious, say so! We’re encouraging people to tick the ‘no religion’ option on the 2021 Census. Below you can find out more about one aspect of this campaign.
Pledge to tick ‘no religion’ ✅
Even though it’s voluntary, it’s important to answer the religion question on the Census!
Some people may not like the Census religion question as they may feel it imposes upon their privacy. But making sure the Census does not undercount the non-religious is hugely important, because policymakers within both local and national government use the information you provide to make law and set government policies, and this affects everyone.
The leading nature of the question, ‘What is your religion?’, leads to an under-counting of the non-religious.
By presuming that everyone has a religion, the Census encourages people to tick a religious box. For example, this might be because they were brought up religious or attended a Christian school, even if they do not believe or practise any religion today.
We know this happens because the British Social Attitudes Survey more neutrally asks ‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion? If yes, which?’ In 2018 it recorded 52 percent of respondents as belonging to no religion. It’s been asking the same question, year on year, since 1983.
In contrast, the 2011 England and Wales Census saw only 25 percent of people tick ‘no religion’, while 7 percent refused to answer. On the face of it, this halves the number of non-religious people. Research has also shown that almost all of the other 7 percent are non-religious. Because non-religious people are more likely to skip this question as being irrelevant, it makes their under-representation that much worse.
If the non-religious are not fully counted, money will be spent maintaining unfair religious discrimination in our society, including everything from more state-funded faith schools and compulsory religious worship in other state schools to contracting out public services to religious organisations that discriminate against non-religious and LGBT service users. So it is important to answer.
You may feel that you do not wish to share your beliefs, as these are personal and you may fear repercussions. However, you do not need to be concerned, because the information you provide on the Census is used for statistical purposes only, and cannot be linked back to you personally.
If you are concerned about revealing your non-religious views to other members of your household, you can always secretly amend your own details by requesting an individual access code if you live in England and Wales, or Northern Ireland.
Doing this lets you discreetly overwrite any answers they may have written for you, without them knowing, and you can do it at any time up to the 21 March deadline, regardless of whether the household form has been filled in yet or not.