Geographic scales of residential segregation in English cities

The barriers to social integration posed by ethnic residential segregation are currently receiving renewed attention in Great Britain. A common characteristic of past studies of ethnic segregation in Britain is reliance upon aggregated Census data, raising potential issues of ecological fallacy. In this study, we address this challenge by using novel individual-level Consumer Register data for the UK to calculate an entropy-based spatial segregation index. We measure changes in segregation over twenty years and examine the impact of geographic scales upon observed levels of segregation in five policy relevant case study areas. Our results and findings can be used to improve the evidence base on segregation dynamics in the United Kingdom and have methodological implications for the future study of the phenomenon.