Table 1

Sample characteristics for women in each ethnic group (column percentages)

White (n = 200)Indian (n = 235)Pakistani (n = 164)Bangladeshi (n = 63)Caribbean (n = 130)African (n = 107)Chinese (n = 51)
Age (years)
    16–2410 20* 23* 29* 22* 20* 24*
    25–3429 29 24 24 24 30 18
    35–4425 26 34 25 22 35 43*
    45–5417 12 10 16 15 9 16
    55+21 15 10* 6* 17 7* 0*
Marital status
    Married/cohabitating73 63* 71 78 52* 62 71
    Single21 25 25 8* 42* 34* 22
    Divorced/separated/widowed7 12 4 14 5 5 8
Socioeconomic class
    AB Managerial/professional15 18 7* 21 7 6* 8
    C1 Supervisory18 27* 28* 21 22 22 28
    C2 Skilled manual29 27 35 30 29 19 31
    D Semi-skilled/unskilled manual22 16 14 18 28 29 14
    E State pensioners/unemployed17 12 15 11 15 24 20
Religion
    Christian64 9* 0.0* 0* 76* 36* 8*
    Hindu05600000
    Sikh01700000
    Muslim0181001000640
    Other40000035
    None3300024153
Language
    English100 57* 51* 67* 100 38* 27.5*
    Punjabi017130000
    Hindi0900000
    Gujarati01300000
    Urdu05360000
    Bangla00022000
    Mandarin00000073
    Somali00000490
    Other000110130
Generational status
    Second generation94 26* 15* 6* 35* 24* 28*
    First generation6325448293633
    Immigrant0433246354039

  • Bold type represents when a 2×2 χ2 was used to analyse the difference in that ethnic group compared with the white British group. Where figures are not in bold type, it was not possible to compute χ2 results because more than 20% of cells in the analysis had a count of less than 5.

  • *p<0.05.