FINDINGS | Social Fabric
Social Fabric Interwoven amongst the city’s physical and cultural infrastructure is an understanding of the unique social fabric of the city and VeloCity’s cluster areas. This sets the scene for VeloCity’s cultural response to the Games, in particular, considering how VeloCity could engage some of the hardest to reach groups, or connect local people and communities, with like-minded cultural and sporting interests. VeloCity’s cultural response is formed through a comprehensive understanding of the physical infrastructure and characteristics of people within Glasgow’s boundary and unique city neighbourhoods. Both combine to influence the demand for specific amenities and responsive local services. This sets the profile of the population in Glasgow City within the wider Glasgow Metropolitan Area and illustrates how this changes as people migrate to the suburbs of the city as their family and economic circumstances change. VeloCity’s ‘Social fabric’ describes the ‘how,’ as well as the ‘where’ people live. It provides a detailed demographic and lifestyle profile of the households in local neighbourhoods, informing new ways of working and highly tailored methods of local engagement.
Currently, Glasgow makes up 11.3% of Scotland’s estimated population of 5.1m in comparison to Edinburgh at 9.3%.11 Age: In the city as a whole 41.5% are between the ages of 20 and 44 years, 21.5% aged 19 years or below and 15% are 65 years and over. Between 2008 and 2018 Glasgow’s population is expected to increase by over 100,000. The largest increases (around 20-30%) are expected in the 55-59, 60-64 and 90+ age brackets alongside young children aged 5-9 years. Conversely young adults aged 1524 years are expected to decrease by a fifth. Life Expectancy: There are proportionally more women (51.6%) than men (48.4%) in Glasgow City. Amongst adults this is largely due to differences in life expectancy and worse in older age groups and areas of multiple deprivation. Ethnic Groups: The majority (88.6%) of Glasgow’s population comprises white people of Scottish, Irish and other British origin. For example, the Gaelic community i.e. those who can understand, speak, read or write Gaelic account for 1.7% of the city population and cover all age groups. Glasgow shows the greatest gain nationally in the number of speakers which can be attributed to both the development of Gaelic medium education and the opening of Scotland’s first Gaelic medium secondary school in 2006.
Since 2001, Glasgow has granted refugee status to a large number of asylum seekers and immigrants from across the borders of existing and new members of the European Union. People defined as Other White now make up one of the largest ethnic groups in the city. This has had a corresponding effect on the size, composition and diversity of the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) population in Glasgow. Currently around 1 in 10 people in the city (11.4%) have a BME background. The south has the highest BME population in relative terms with 14.4%, followed by the north west at 12%. Under 1 in 10 (7%) of the north east’s population is of BME origin. As distinct BME categories, Pakistani (3.5%), Other White (3.4%) and Indian (1.2%) are each estimated to form more than 1% of the city’s total population. The south area contains a large Pakistani community (15,431 people) which is three quarters of the city’s total Pakistani population. Living Conditions: Poor accommodation and limited living conditions not only affect people’s health and well being but levels of public engagement. For example, people are less likely to know their neighbours, volunteer or vote. A greater range and variety of modern social housing helps more hard pressed people take up jobs and become involved in their communities. In 2001, just over half the population in Glasgow City owned their own homes or lived in shared ownership. The 33