Race is one of the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. The Act aims to protect people from direct and indirect discrimination, harassment, and victimisation on the basis of race.

Find support, initiatives, and guidance relating to race and ethnicity here.

 

Terminology

The traditional definition of race and ethnicity is related to biological and sociological factors respectively:

• Race refers to the concept of dividing people into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of physical characteristics (which usually result from genetic ancestry) e.g. skin colour.
• Ethnicity refers to a population group whose members identify with each other on the basis of common nationality, language, religion, or shared cultural traditions.

We also uses the term 'BAME' (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) in our work on race equality.

 

Definition of 'Race' in the Equality Act

In the Equality Act, ‘race’ includes:

• Colour.
• Nationality.
• Ethnic or national origins.

In the Act's definition, a racial group can be made up of two or more different racial groups (e.g. Black Britons).

 

The statistics and infographic are from our Equality Monitoring Annual Report. If you'd like to know more about why we collect personal and protected characteristic information, have a look at the Equality Monitoring: Why Share Your Personal Information? webpage.

Photo by The Gender Spectrum Collection. Colour filter added to original.