With immigration running at a high level over the past few decades, Britain has become, ethnically and culturally speaking, a much more diverse society than before. Right across the political spectrum there are concerns over whether growing social diversity would undermine community cohesion, and scholars have reported conflicting results on this issue. In this lecture, I report the findings from an ongoing research project with Juta Kawalerowicz (Stockholm University). We analyse Understanding Society data cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and show that while social diversity is associated with lower levels of community cohesion, these associations are explained away when material deprivation is taken into account. Overall, it is material deprivation, not diversity, which threatens the social fabric.

Co-authors

Dr Juta Kawalerowicz, Stockholm University